


Insidious

by Kate_Shepard



Category: Mass Effect
Genre: Alternate Universe - Dark, Anal Sex, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Dark, Domestic Violence, Drugged Sex, Extremely Dubious Consent, F/M, Fisting, Hypnotism, Kidnapping, Mind Control, Mind Games, Mindfuck, Multi, Non-Consensual Drug Use, Oral Sex, Rape, Rape/Non-con Elements, Rough Sex, Sadism, Sexual Abuse, Shakarian - Freeform, Shakarios - Freeform, Shrios, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-14
Updated: 2016-11-14
Packaged: 2018-08-30 22:48:27
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 19
Words: 39,659
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8552458
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kate_Shepard/pseuds/Kate_Shepard
Summary: Thane never joined Shepard on the Normandy. During an assassination attempt, he captures her with the intent of keeping her for his own. When the war breaks out, they rejoin the Normandy crew to fight the Reapers but Thane has a game of his own. Can Shepard and Garrus overcome together?
Filling a request for a dark fic without a lot of fluff and love. Features an extremely sadistic Thane. Explores what he could have become had he not stopped with Irikah's killers. Thane is not a good guy in this story.





	1. Chapter 1

**Insidious:** _proceeding in a gradual, subtle way, but with harmful effects_

* * *

Thane slipped into the shadows and activated his omni-tool to send confirmation to his employer that his contract was complete. Movement at the entrance of the alley where he stood caught his eye and he dismissed the tool before the glow could draw attention. He contemplated drawing back but the rough, growling voices that filtered through the dark were out of place here and drew his attention as those voices always did. He crouched down and peered around the dumpster to see a trio of batarians surrounding a human. The human man was nervous. His eyes darted around anxiously but, rather than looking for escape, he seemed to be watching for onlookers. 

"Can you do it or not?" one of the batarians growled. 

"It won't be easy," the human said. "There are biometric scanners at the entrance, more on her floor, cameras everywhere, and she's under constant guard. Even after I get past all of that, she's still _her_. I want payment up front. I won't accept it contingent on success. There are no guarantees with her. If you wanted certainty, you should have hired a drell."

Thane knew precisely why they hadn’t hired a drell. Assassins tended to be solitary but there was a sort of unspoken code of honor between them and after what they had done to Irikah, none of them would accept contracts from the batarians. He was curious about this. Who did the batarians want dead and why? They were not following any sort of professional protocol with which he was familiar, which meant the would-be assassin was an amateur. That explained the nervousness. The target, on the other hand, sounded high-profile. One of the batarians wore the mark of the Hegemony. That meant it was likely to be a government-sanctioned hit. That they would entrust that to a human amateur told him that the target was likely to be restricted to the Alliance base. Thane had no particular fondness for humans or the Alliance but they were one of the few groups actively working against the batarians. Thus, anyone the batarians wanted dead was likely someone who needed to stay alive. When the assassin left, Thane followed.

As he’d expected, the human went to the military base. Thane hacked his omni-tool and monitored the man’s progress as he broke away to get into the base undetected. He picked him up again outside of Alliance Headquarters. Unlike Thane, the human had access to the building. That explained the batarians’ choice. They had traded easy access for skill. Foolish. A skilled assassin would not be deterred even by military-grade security, especially considering that, for humans, military-grade was generally whatever they could acquire from the lowest bidder. The tech used did not approach top-of-the-line. For the most part, it was dismayingly outdated. A quick scan identified no less than fifteen different flaws in the system that he could use to infiltrate the facility. He chose his route and continued shadowing the human.

___

Shepard sat back in her chair and smirked at the lieutenant across from her. “Come on, Lola,” he said. “Give a guy a break. What are you going to do with all those credits anyway?”

“Ready to give up yet?” she asked.

His eyes narrowed. “Oh, hell, no. I am going to beat you at least once.” He shuffled the holographic cards and dealt a new hand. 

“You wish,” she scoffed. 

She liked Vega. If she had to have a guard, she could have done worse. The lieutenant was a good man and a good soldier. He preferred to go by the book but wasn’t afraid to throw it out when the situation called for it. He took his job seriously but he treated her more like a dignitary than a prisoner. He was intelligent, loyal, compassionate, and a good sport even when she was kicking his ass at Skyllian Five. Best of all, he believed her about the Reapers and was one of the few Alliance soldiers left who didn’t automatically demonize her. 

So, when the door exploded inward, she wasn’t surprised when he automatically put himself between her and the threat. She also didn’t hesitate to catch the omni-tool chip he tossed behind his back at her and slip it into the port as he threw the table they’d been sitting at up to create a barrier. She activated the shield and fabricated a plasma ball which she kept at the ready. The smoke from the doorway filled the room and she resisted the urge to cough. Vega motioned to the kitchen and she cloaked and ran across the room. A moment later, he joined her behind a cabinet. 

Another loud bang had her ears ringing and she struggled to see through the flash of light. So far, they’d been unable to identify an intruder and Vega seemed hesitant to fire blindly. There were other people in this building and few of them were prisoners like her. Most actually were dignitaries. Something pinched her neck, making her think of a seeker sting, and she slapped at it but there was nothing there. She turned with the intention of firing her incendiary blast at the intruder but her hand fell limply to her side and she slumped over as darkness rushed in.

___

Thane moved swiftly when the door blew open. The would-be assassin showed both his fear and his inexperience by using explosives. Whoever the human woman was, she terrified the man. As Thane moved through the vents, he saw her guard turn and her hand flash out to catch the chip he tossed her. She didn’t panic. She didn’t rush. She moved smoothly and precisely. She wasn’t just a soldier. She had advanced training. Thane noted that as the incompetent assassin threw a flashbang grenade and he dropped down behind him. He felt the pop as the man’s neck broke and scoffed. The man hadn’t even realized Thane was there. The batarians truly had scraped the bottom of the barrel this time. 

He utilized the white-out to move through the apartment and sneak up behind the female. Her vision and hearing had been temporarily overwhelmed by the grenade and it was a simple matter to fit the injector against her neck and depress the plunger. She turned sharply, clearly intending to attack, but the drug worked quickly and she was unconscious within a matter of heartbeats. Her guard was still focused on the doorway. The light had faded and he could just make out the fallen body of the would-be assassin. Thane gave him the second dose and quickly cleared the apartment to ensure that no one else had come through. They were alone.

He wanted to find out why the batarians had targeted her. The guard was not for show. He had been prepared for an attack. That meant that she’d anticipated the possibility. An enemy of the batarians was a tool that he could use. He checked the guard and found a pulse. The man was not his target. Thane would leave him. He popped the omni-tool chip out of the woman’s port and tossed it on the floor before scooping her up over his shoulder and climbing up into the vents once more. Whoever she was, whatever she knew or had done, he would discover the truth from her one way or another.

___

Shepard came to lying in a bed. She controlled her breathing and remained still as she listened for any sound and attempted to get her bearings before alerting anyone that she’d woken. She heard breathing toward the foot of the bed but it was only one person and didn’t have the nasal hiss of a batarian. She didn’t smell the musk of a krogan or the heat that would have radiated off of a turian from that distance. Human? Cerberus, perhaps? She knew she wasn’t in the apartment anymore. The quiet hum of a ship’s drive core dispelled that idea instantly. She had been captured. The metal encircling her wrists was warm as was the bed below her, so she’d been here for some time.

“I know you are awake,” the unidentified person said. There was a rumble to his voice that was similar to the flange of a turian but both the subtone and the language were wrong for a turian. Salarians didn’t have that dual tone. It sounded male, so that ruled out asari. She had already guessed that he wasn’t batarian or krogan but the voice confirmed it. There wasn’t enough growl for them. It didn’t have the dull monotone of an elcor or speak in third person like a hanar. It certainly wasn’t a vorcha. She would have picked up on that within seconds. What the hell? “Open your eyes,” he said.

She gave a mental shrug and obeyed. She was in a small cabin aboard a ship smaller than a frigate. A corvette, perhaps, or maybe an interceptor, she decided. Her eyes traveled down the length of the bed where she found a drell like Feron with emerald scales and large, black eyes. He was dressed in a tight-fitting black leather suit that hugged his muscular frame in all the right places and had his hands clasped behind his back. He looked coldly down at her and she cocked a brow. “Who are you?” she asked.

“My identity is irrelevant at the moment,” he answered. “Yours is the one of import. Who are you and why were the batarians attempting to have you killed?”

Her eyes narrowed. “You’re the one. You injected me with something. Where’s Vega? If you killed him, I’ll—”

“You are in no position to make threats,” he stated. “However, I presume that you are referring to the human male that was guarding you. He is alive and unharmed and has likely woken by now given his larger body mass. I ask again, who are you?”

“Commander Shepard,” she answered without hesitation. “Alliance Navy, N7. Would you like my serial number and date of birth as well?”

“No,” he said. “Why were the batarians targeting you, Commander?”

“I would assume it’s because of Bahak,” she answered. “Why did you capture me?”

He ignored her question. “Elaborate,” he ordered.

“No,” she said. “Not until I find out what the hell is going on. Release me or you won’t get shit out of me.”

“I cannot do that at the moment, Commander,” he said. “I do not make a habit of allowing ghosts to roam about on my ship. Now, tell me the truth. Who are you really?”

“I am Commander Shepard,” she answered.

“Commander Shepard has been dead for almost three years,” he stated.

“I got better,” she said drily. “Have you been living under a rock for the past nine months? Don’t believe me? Check the extranet.”

He activated his omni-tool and she saw his bright green irises move behind their dark lenses as he read. He closed it out and looked down at her. “It seems you are being charged with terrorism.”

“I blew up a mass relay,” she said.

“Why?” he asked.

“To stop the Reapers,” she answered. “The relay just happened to be located in the Bahak System and destroyed it as well along with 304,942 batarians. Now they want me dead. Happy? Let me go.”

“No,” he said almost absently. “That would certainly incentivize them to kill you. Were you under guard or imprisoned?”

“A little bit of both,” she answered. “And if it’s all the same to you, I’d like to get back to it before what little is left of my career and credibility are completely shot. If you haven’t heard, the Reapers are on their way and I have a galaxy to prepare.”

He looked over at her. “How successful is your effort when you are all but in the brig?”

Not very, she could have answered. The Defense Committee was more worried about appeasing the batarians and accounting for the two years she spent dead and questioning her about her time with Cerberus than heeding her warnings. Admirals Anderson and Hackett were doing their best but her contributions largely consisted of railing at the Committee to stop wasting her time. She wasn’t going to tell him that because if she wasn’t there, things would be even worse and when the Reapers did come, she would be branded a traitor and her hands would be tied.

“That is what I thought,” he said when she didn’t respond. “You will remain here.”

“The hell I will,” she snarled but he turned and walked out of the room. She pulled hard on the cuffs, trying to free her hands but they didn’t give and she only succeeded in tearing her skin open on the metal. She sank back with a sigh of frustration. She would bide her time. He would have to release her at some point if for nothing more than to use the head. If she could commandeer the ship, she could return to Earth. If that failed, he had to dock eventually. She would likely have a better chance of escape on a planet or station and she could contact the Alliance and have them pick her up. She would get free. It was just a matter of time.


	2. Chapter 2

Thane paced the bridge, thinking quickly. She was Commander Shepard, the savior of the Citadel. She looked nothing like he’d imagined on the rare occasions when he had garnered enough curiosity about the rest of the galaxy to spend time imagining anything outside of his vengeance. He wanted to keep her, to possess her. It was the first desire that he had felt since Irikah’s death, the first stirring of any emotion but fury, the first time that he had looked outside of himself in ten years. He realized that he wasn’t looking far outside of himself. He wasn’t looking far enough for her desires to be of consequence to him. 

He knew about the Reapers. He was not yet ready to die. He was not so sadistic as to sentence an entire galaxy to extinction simply for his own selfish whim. He would either have to give her up or convince her that she wanted him around when they came but for now, the Reapers were not here and the two of them were. If she was fated to be in captivity one way or another, he would keep her in his. He could better protect her from her enemies than that human guard. With his mind made up, he set a course for Illium and allowed the VI to control the ship while he began creating the documentation that would bind her to him. She would need a new identity. That was a simple matter. He had many identities. He could craft one for her in short order. Hacking the Alliance’s records to alter her biometric data and assign it to the new identity was laughably simple. The Council’s records were slightly more difficult and occupied him through two relay jumps. 

Keeping her cooperative until he could convince her to remain of her own semi-free will would be slightly more difficult. He would not utilize a control chip; not out of any moral standing as he had no morals but those assigned to him by his employers but because he felt that relying on them was lazy. Careful dosing of his venom would make her suggestible and her mind pliant. The sedatives had cleared her system far more quickly than he had anticipated and would be less useful than he would have hoped. He would utilize them when absolutely necessary but the doses required to keep her unconscious for any extended length of time would be far too high. He would utilize the tools at his disposal. His venom, his biotics, and his intellect would be sufficient for his goal.

He would also need to decline contracts for the near future but that was acceptable. She would keep him occupied and he had credits to spare. Killing for others was a lucrative business. He could afford to take time off and devote himself to her training. Perhaps, when she realized that she was being kept in a style more suited to her status, she would even be grateful to him for freeing her from the Alliance’s clutches. Her absence from the galactic stage was unavoidable whether she was with him or not and she herself did not see any value to her presence with them. 

He spent the remaining travel time doing research. He wanted to know everything about her life, her career, her capabilities, and the people to whom she was attached. He already knew that she had been born on Mindoir and was the sole survivor of the raid there. He knew that she had held Elysium during the Skyllian Blitz. He knew that she was the first human Spectre. He did not know that she had been one of the youngest N7s ever pinned or that the former human councilor had been her mentor. He had not known that she had been associated with Cerberus. Further digging into their records showed him that she had, in fact, died and been brought back to life. 

He could not access the detailed records on the project that had brought her back but he did locate her personal communications. That revealed far more about her than he had anticipated. Her former lover had turned on her on Horizon, it seemed, and regretted it. There was no return communication. The lover simply ceased to exist in her mind as far as he could tell. She had moved on to her turian crewmate without a backward glance. She had returned to the site of her ship’s crash and retrieved the dog tags of her fallen crew but left their bodies in the shadow of the ship rather than move them. He wondered about her reasoning for that as he scrolled through mission reports and requests for aid. 

One caught his eye and he stared at it in shock. She had killed and supplanted the Shadow Broker. He leaned back in the pilot’s seat and ran a hand over his face. He had never even considered taking on the mysterious alien who’d given the batarians his name and the information required to find his family. He would have thought it an impossible task and yet here was the intel on the Broker’s whereabouts and later communications that implied that he had been found and replaced. It made him even more determined to keep her out of an Alliance prison. 

___

He gave her no opportunities for escape while on the ship. The one time he did allow her off of the bed, he kept the cuffs on and his hand on them and he was even stronger than he looked. She had yet to see Feron completely recovered and didn’t know what to expect from a healthy male. He waited outside the door to the head and escorted her back to the cabin. She fought but he simply put her into stasis and, while she wasn’t familiar with his species, there was no mistaking the excitement in his eyes. It was a combination of anticipation, glee, and a strange, dark desire that she didn’t entirely understand because she was completely unfamiliar with it. He liked that she fought him. However, he was oddly gentle when he laid her on the bed and, while he moved atop her as he fastened her cuffs back to the bulkhead and she could see that he was aroused, he made no move to touch her more than was necessary. 

With him that close, she was able to pick up a few things about him that she hadn’t noticed with Feron. His musculature was far denser than a human’s. His body temperature was lower. Heat didn’t radiate off of him even to the extent it would with another human. His hands were deft and agile as well as strong. His scales were not just one shade of green but ranged in tone from dark moss to lime with emerald being the base tone. It made him look like a living gem. He had two sets of eyelids and they blinked independently of each other. “What are you?” she asked, trying a different tactic to get some sort of information about him. Drell were rare and he wouldn’t likely assume that she’d seen one of his kind.

He looked down at her and his inner eyelids blinked as if in surprise. “I am a drell,” he stated.

“That race that lives on the hanar homeworld?” she asked. 

“Indeed,” he answered. “The hanar rescued my people from extinction when our own homeworld was dying.”

He seemed open to discussion now, so she asked, “Why were you there? How do I know that you weren’t with the guy at the door or that you aren’t actually the one sent to kill me?”

He gave her a flat look and said confidently, “Had I wished you dead, Commander, you would have been. Let us simply say that an enemy of the batarians and the old Shadow Broker is a…potential ally of mine.”

She cocked a brow, wondering how he knew that she’d killed the last Shadow Broker. It could be a guess, so she wouldn’t confirm or deny it. Instead, she addressed the latter part of his statement. “Alliances require trust. How, exactly, do you propose that I trust you when you’ve got me chained to a wall?”

He moved smoothly off of her and said, “ _Potential_ ally. Nothing is certain at the moment but that you have seen my face. I cannot simply let you go.”

“Is this the part where I’m supposed to beg you? Oh, Mister Assassin, please don’t kill me. I promise I won’t tell anyone,” she said sarcastically. “I don’t beg.”

He smirked and his eyes raked over her before he leaned down and wrapped a hand loosely around her throat. His voice was cold but his eyes burned as he said, “Rest assured, Commander. Should I wish for you to beg, you will beg. It will not be for your life, however, unless you cross me. I am a patient man but you will not mock me.”

She let her own expression go flat and gave him a derisive look of her own as she said, “I don’t think you know quite who you’re dealing with, drell.”

“I know exactly who you are, Commander Shepard, and what you are capable of. However, I also know that your victories have been secured by a team rather than you alone. You are on your own here and I can be friend or foe. The choice is yours,” he said menacingly.

“Tell that to the ten thousand batarians who tried to take Elysium and failed,” she said, rankling at the implication that she was not strong enough on her own to take him. “You can find their bodies in mass graves across the colony. Or, if you prefer, the hundreds of indoctrinated soldiers on Project Base. They’ll be a little more difficult to locate, unfortunately, considering that they’ve all been vaporized. I don’t care how strong you are or how smart you think you are. You are still only one man. I have killed many who were better than you.”

To her surprise, he laughed darkly. “Yes, you will do nicely. This will be very entertaining.”

“Fuck you,” she sneered.

“I plan to,” he whispered against her ear as his hand released her throat and traveled down her body. “I had intended to wait until we arrive at our destination but if you are so eager, I could indulge you now.”

“Get your hands off of me,” she snarled. “Put them on me again and you will lose them.”

He nipped lightly at the side of her neck and she ignored the automatic reaction of her body. It was a purely physiological response and neither shamed nor excited her. His tongue was cool and smooth against her throat as he dragged it along her skin and then whispered, “I doubt it, Commander, but you are welcome to try. Bite me and I will remove your teeth.” Then his lips were on hers and she fought back the urge to gag at the combination of revulsion and desire that swept through her. If they had met in any other way, if not for Garrus, if he hadn’t been completely insane or utterly evil—she wasn’t sure which it was yet—she would have responded eagerly to him. But he was either insane or evil or both and, while her body might react to him, her mind rejected him. 

It was worse in a way than the two days she had spent semi-sedated on Project Base surrounded by indoctrinated soldiers who were far gone enough to have reverted to their most basic needs. Those were quick, impersonal events and she wasn’t entirely aware of them. This was different. His tongue slid past her lips and the desire to bite down was almost irresistible but she had no doubt that he would follow through on his promise and she liked her teeth. Instead, she drew her knee up and slammed it into his ribcage as hard as she could in her precarious position in an attempt to throw him off. His tongue retracted and he bit her lip punishingly. His teeth were straight, white, and flat like a human’s but the edges were sharp and she tasted the tang of blood. He groaned against her mouth and his tongue darted out to collect it. Her stomach roiled even as heat shot through her core and she rolled to the side, tearing her mouth from his as she tried to control the heaving of her body. 

“Relax, Shepard,” he said in a tone that was almost soothing. “You will soon be content.”

She turned her head to look at him over her shoulder and the sharp lines of the cabin wavered. A warm tingle rushed from her toes to her scalp and she demanded, “What did you do to me?”

His lips quirked into a secretive smile and he said, “You will be mine, Shepard, one way or another.” She heard a ding and he straightened. “We are approaching Illium. I understand that you are familiar with the planet. Thus, you are aware of their indentured servitude laws. I have taken the liberty of formulating a contract with you. It is binding upon your signature.”

“I won’t sign it,” she said as the light glinted off of his scales and threw glittering green stars into orbit around him. “You drugged me.”

“I did,” he admitted nonchalantly. “And now we wait.”


	3. Chapter 3

“Wait for what?” Shepard asked as the dimensions of the cabin expanded around her. The bed felt softer beneath her and she heard the gurgle of a fish tank. The stars around him swirled through the air to fix themselves to the overhead and she closed her eyes against the sense of vertigo that threatened to make her sick. When she opened them again, she was in her cabin on the _Normandy_. 

“Your comfort zone,” the man beside her answered. 

She blinked up at him. “Garrus?”

“I need to speak with you,” the turian said. “You could say it is urgent.” Shepard cocked her head at the formality of his tone and the strange rhythm of his speech. He leaned forward and said, “Your hands are tangled in the sheets. Let me help.”

She looked up and watched as he untangled her wrists from the sheet that had bound them sometime in the night. There was something odd about his hands but she couldn’t pinpoint it. “Thanks,” she said as he loosened the bindings. The sheets had chafed her wrists and she rubbed them, wondering how the cloth had managed to abrade them so thoroughly. Thanks to her skin weave, the flesh wasn’t raw but she could see marks that were still healing. Her mouth was dry and when she licked her lips, she thought she tasted blood. They weren’t chapped, though, and her brow furrowed until she remembered sparring with him the night before. He’d split her lip by accident and she’d laughed at the concern he’d shown until he moved that concern into the bedroom. 

She sat up in the bed and gestured for him to sit beside her. He chose the chair instead and turned it to face her. “I need to return to Palaven immediately,” he said. “I have a family emergency. However, Miranda will not approve a transfer request without your signature.”

“I don’t see why you need paperwork,” she said. “We’ll be docking on Illium soon and I’m sure we can find a transport for you.”

He looked down at his hands and back up at her. “I...have no credits. I had hoped that Cerberus would be willing to cover it since we aren’t exactly getting paid for this.”

“I do pay you,” she said, feeling confused. “I’ll have a talk with Miranda and find out why the money isn’t being transferred. In the meantime, of course we’ll cover it.”

“I have the tickets here,” he said, handing her a datapad. “It just needs your authorization.”

She looked down at the datapad in her hands and then back up at him. “This is about your mom, right?” she asked. “Is there anything I can do?”

“Getting me home will be enough, Shepard,” he assured her. 

“Okay, sweetheart,” she said and signed her name. Poor Garrus. He’d been through so much and now the one person he was close to without being at odds aside from herself was dying. He had to be feeling very alone right now. She passed the datapad to him and leaned forward. He rested his face against her hand. It was softer and smoother than she remembered and her brain struggled to reconcile the difference between what she saw and what she felt. She looked intently into his glittering blue eyes and said, “I’m here for you, Garrus. _Anything_ you need, just ask.”

___

There it was, Thane thought. Her signature and her weakness. He had already discovered that she had gone to great lengths for her crew but this one was different. Garrus Vakarian, former C-Sec agent turned vigilante on Omega. Archangel. There were many, many people who would be interested in learning that the turian was still alive and more than one who would be willing to turn to a professional to correct that. Shepard was nothing if not loyal. She would risk herself but she would not put someone she cared about in danger in order to protect herself. 

Her thumb brushed against his frill and the purr that rumbled through his chest took him by surprise. Memory tried to surface. Her eyes turned to sunset but, while the color changed, the expression in them did not. How long had it been since someone had looked at him like that? He could count the days if he chose but he tamped down the memory and her eyes shifted from drell to human again. A part of him that he’d thought had died with Irikah longed for her to look at him like that while actually seeing him rather than another and he curbed that as ruthlessly as he did the memory of his dead wife. He did not want her heart except inasmuch as he wanted to own every part of her. He certainly had no need for love. He only had to look where that fallacious idea had led him once before to reject it.

He pulled back from her hand and rose. “Thank you, Shepard,” he said. “This will be most helpful. You should get some sleep.”

“Okay,” she said with a nod as the full suggestibility of his venom kicked in. She laid back onto the bed and closed her eyes. A moment later, she was breathing deeply and evenly and he carefully secured her hands once more before returning to the bridge to dock at Nos Astra. 

___

Shepard slept through the transfer for when she woke again, she was in a different bed and the hum of the drive core was replaced with silence. Her hands were free and she sat up to find herself in a bedroom that she quickly surmised belonged to him. She searched for anything that could be used as a weapon but found nothing in the drawers but clothing. The closet held more sets of the leather outfit he’d worn and she discovered that it was not only intricately tailored and incredibly soft, high-quality material but armored as well. Soft-soled leather boots were tucked neatly in the corner. Through the open door, she could see him on the level below, seated on the floor with his legs crossed, dressed only in loose-fitting black pants. His muscular back was criss-crossed with scars where the scales either didn’t meet or overlapped. If he heard her moving about, he didn’t register awareness. 

She crouched down and quietly removed her boots before slipping the laces from one. She would move more quietly barefoot and, with any luck, the bootlace would suffice as a garrote. After a moment of debate, her cargo pants followed. The fabric was somewhat stiff and would rustle if she moved the wrong way. Modesty didn’t concern her. Stealth did and besides, she was still more fully covered than she would be in a swimsuit. She padded silently to the doorway and evaluated her route. She may not have a tactical cloak but she was still an infiltrator and she was trained to blend into the shadows, to use what cover she could find, and to move silently when she wanted. 

The bedroom led to a balcony that overlooked the ground floor and from there, to a gently curving staircase. She utilized the parapet of the balcony and stairs to shield herself from view and glided from one step to another, keeping her feet close to the edges where they were less likely to squeak and testing each one before applying her full weight to it. The staircase ended at the living area and that would be far more difficult to traverse without drawing his attention as it offered less cover and was closer to him. The likelihood of him hearing or catching her movement before she reached him was high, especially given the darkened wall of windows before which he sat that reflected the room like a mirror. She wished for her cloak as she slipped into place behind a couch and looked longingly at the glowing red lock on the front door. If she’d had her omni-tool, she could override it but he would reach her long before she was able to manually hack it. She had no choice but to attack.

Her crew loved to make fun of her for her lack of grace on a dance floor but a battlefield was different. She couldn’t dance to save her life but give her a goal and allow her adrenaline to begin to flow and she was poetry in motion. She extended a leg and shifted her weight onto the toes of the outstretched foot, carrying herself to the edge of the couch in a single smooth, silent move. The coffee table was a solid piece and she risked a glance at the windows. If he was waiting for her and saw her, she would rush him. If he was not, she would slip behind the table and continue stalking him. The reflection in the windows showed her that his eyes were closed and his face looked serene. He almost appeared to be meditating. Good. If the gods were on her side, he would be so deep in it, he wouldn’t realize the threat until she had him in her grasp.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> NSFW from here on out. Really fucked up non-con. You've been warned.

Shepard moved behind the table and sank closer to the floor. Low crawling was not quiet enough and could potentially vibrate the floor upon which he sat. It would also put her in a position where she could not move quickly enough to get away. Fortunately, he was larger than she was and she could use his body to shield herself from his view in the windows. She crept up behind him with the bootlace wrapped around her hands. She saw the tension in his body a heartbeat before he moved, rolling to the side and lashing out with a bare foot. He was fast, faster than she’d expected, and she leaped back to dodge the blow before rushing him. 

He gained his feet and met her blow with a flurry of fists and forearms and elbows. She dodged some, blocked others, and took one that snapped her teeth together, rocked her head back, and made blood bloom in her mouth. It gave her the opening she needed, though, and she grasped his fist in her hands and used their momentum to throw him over her shoulder. He crashed down onto the table and it splintered under his weight. He rolled to his feet before she could press her advantage and she found herself on the defensive once more until she gained enough distance to send a roundhouse kick solidly into his chest. He stumbled back and she pursued. 

She was a distance fighter and hadn’t specialized in hand-to-hand but Garrus had taught her well and she could hold her own against anyone on her crew in CQC. The drell, however, was a challenge. She felt her blood sing in her veins as she finally found herself pitted against a worthy opponent, someone she couldn’t take down with a single well-placed punch and finish off with her omni-blade. She grinned at the prospect of a real fight after feeling so helpless before and it seemed to take him aback but didn’t shake him. 

She recognized her mistake an instant too late as his hand closed over her throat and he lifted and threw her over the couch, following in a graceful leap. He moved like water, slipping and gliding around her so smoothly that she was hard-pressed to keep up. He was lightning fast and almost as strong as Grunt with reach that would rival Garrus. She recalled one of the barn cats her family had kept on Mindoir. It was a sadistic little tom that loved nothing more than to catch a mouse and play with it for hours. He would toy with it, allowing it to think that it had the upper hand, that it could escape, before swatting it down and starting again. His game inevitably ended with a mouse tail dangling from his mouth. She was beginning to feel like that mouse as she realized that he was only toying with her. She was fighting hard and he was still cool and controlled. _Not today,_ she thought. _Your prey is a bit more predatory than you believe and that will be your downfall._

One of the things that Garrus had taught her was to always keep something in reserve. People tended to look at her size and gender and underestimate her even knowing who she was. That was an advantage and she played into it by following Garrus’ advice. When they thought she was giving everything she had, that last little bit she held back generally proved the difference between victory and defeat. Unfortunately, the drell’s reserves appeared much deeper than hers and so she knew she had to play her hand now before he wore her down. She dug deep and called on that last bit of strength and speed and skill. When he stepped forward to plant his fist in her face, she rolled her shoulder, moving out of the way, and shifted behind him. Her foot darted out and caught his and she used his weight to propel him forward onto the floor. He landed hard and she jumped onto his back and wrapped the bootlace around his throat. Her forearms strained as she held it as tightly as it would go with the intention of cutting off his circulation or air or both. 

He relaxed beneath her and she was stunned to see his fingers begin to drum almost thoughtfully on the floor as if he was waiting for something. She tightened the cord further and felt him snort out an amused breath. She looked down at him in confusion. He wasn’t struggling for air. The bright red ribbing on his throat and the lower part of his face hadn’t paled. Either the garrote wasn’t able to tighten sufficiently—and she could feel no stretch to the material to imply that it was giving more than it should—or his physiology didn’t allow for this. She cursed silently and flipped her wrists to plant her hands on either side of his head with the intention of snapping his neck. 

The moment her fingers made contact with his smooth scalp, he reached back and tucked her leg hard into his side and rolled. She fought it but he was stronger than she and outweighed her. He pinned her to the floor on her back with his hand locked around her throat. She lashed out with a fist as the other hand clutched at his, trying to dislodge it. He darted back and caught her fist before leaning his weight against her throat again and pinning her hand above her head. She felt the tingle of biotics holding her in place and realized with dismay that he’d held far more in reserve than she. She had no chance against him in a hand-to-hand fight and he’d known it. 

His eyes were wide and dark in his face and his nostrils flared slightly before he leaned down with a growl and his lips crashed against hers. She bucked her hips in an attempt to dislodge him and bit down sharply on his full lower lip. He merely groaned into her mouth and ran a hand down her body. She struggled to get away from him but that served only to entice him further and to deprive her body of much-needed oxygen. He flexed his hand, allowing her to gulp in a breath, and gave her underwear a sharp tug. The edges of the fabric dug into her flesh before it tore and then he was pushing her thighs apart with his knees and his fingers were dragging through her folds. 

Adrenaline, bloodlust, fear, the threat of death, and her body’s traitorous desire for his regardless of anything else combined to betray her and she felt moisture gather at his fingertips as he pushed his fingers into her. He stretched her with them before withdrawing and she felt his knuckles brush against her as he presumably lowered his own pants. She felt him nudge her entrance before he thrust into her. He wasn’t as rough as she’d expected but he wasn’t gentle, either, and her hips rolled in an attempt to ease his entrance even as her internal muscles tightened in an attempt to keep him out. His moan vibrated against her chest and he sank deeper into her. 

She tried to pull away from his mouth or to close her teeth to bar the tongue that sought entrance but his free hand fisted in her hair and the forefinger and thumb of the one around her throat pressed into the joint of her jaw and she was forced to open for him. He seated himself inside of her and stopped moving but for his mouth and the hand that was still giving her breath only when he felt like doing so. She tried again to dislodge him but it was useless, so she resorted to lying still and resistant. His insistence that he had more of a right to her body and herself than she did incensed her. Her helplessness against him was infuriating. Her body’s mindless response to him enraged her. However, this was not the worst thing that could happen to a person and she had survived it before. She would survive it again.

She did not _want_ to have sex with him. She did not _want_ him inside of her. She did not _want_ to be aroused. Her body didn’t care what she wanted any more than he did and that was the worst part of all. She felt betrayed by her own flesh, by the body that had taken her through countless deadly situations, the one thing she could count on when all else failed. Now, it was as if it belonged to someone else and that, above all, was maddening. She thought it could not get worse until she felt whatever drug he’d used on her earlier to secure her signature send that tingling rush through her limbs. 

_Not Garrus,_ she thought. She couldn’t bear the idea that the one person in the galaxy she loved without reservation would be forever linked to this. She trusted him implicitly and she thought that was why her mind had conjured her earlier. Everything about this man was designed to cause her to betray herself. _He’s venomous,_ she realized as the scales on his abdomen brushed against her skin, _and not in a metaphorical sense. He’s actually venomous. Like a snake. Only his venom is a drug and he doesn’t have to bite to inject it._

Her surroundings didn’t shift this time but instead, she was imbued with a sense of warmth and security that only heightened the desires of her body. He left her mind relatively intact while shifting the emotions surrounding the event until she couldn’t remember exactly why she was fighting him. His hand relaxed around her throat as he moved experimentally and she released her grip on it to slide her hand over his broad shoulder. He groaned again and this time, she responded by wrapping her legs around his waist. His teeth scraped lightly over her lip and he released her other hand from stasis so that she could slide it along the back of his neck. His hips moved experimentally and she gasped. She felt his lips curl into a smile and he began to move, thrusting slowly at first before sliding an arm beneath her hips and changing her angle. She kissed him back as she moved with him and his fist tightened in her hair as he began to pound into her, fucking her hard. 

His mouth left hers to trail along her throat, licking and nipping as he went, and she threw her head back to allow him access. Her breath came in sharp little pants as he drove into her and she clung desperately to him. Her arms wrapped around him and her nails skittered over his scales as she fought for purchase against the rolling muscles of his back and shoulders. He felt better than anyone had a right to feel. The ridges that lined his cock hit all of the right places inside of her and his body was fit for a god. His voice when he spoke was pure, liquid sex. “That’s it, Shepard,” he murmured. “Give yourself to me. I will care for you and protect you. You are mine, Siha.”

A part of her mind rejected his words even as another part found security and belonging in them and longed for them to be true. He kissed her again and by the time he drew back, she wanted nothing more than to be his. “Please,” she gasped, straining against him, seeking completion. “More. Please.”

“I told you that you would beg if I wanted it,” he said warmly. He adjusted his rhythm so that his hips were rolling against hers, rubbing the scales at his groin over her clit as he thrust into her. Her legs tightened around him, gripping his trim waist, and her nails dragged over his back as she cried out. She vaguely acknowledged that she didn’t even know his name and that seemed strange somehow but she felt that she knew _him_ and the name didn’t matter. She bit down on his shoulder as her body tightened and her release broke over her. He buried himself inside of her again and she felt him pulse as he groaned his own release into her neck. 

He withdrew from her and rose before helping her to her feet. She followed meekly up the stairs and into his bedroom where he laid her on the bed and tucked her head against his shoulder. She nuzzled against his throat and felt him chuckle as she pressed her lips to the velvety ribbing there. “What’s so funny?” she whispered sleepily. 

“I am simply thinking of your reaction in the morning when you realize that I overpowered, drugged, and raped you,” he said, trailing his fingers gently through her hair as he brushed his lips over her forehead. She recognized the words and registered them but there was no emotional response to his statement beyond what she already felt for him. It had no connotations either positive or negative to her. He cupped her cheek in his hand and kissed her softly. “Hearing you beg for me while I violated you was one of the most captivating experiences of my life. I think I may do it again in the morning with only the venom that seeps into your skin through the night. I quite enjoyed your attempts at resistance.” He kissed her deeply before sliding his hands beneath her shirt and tugging it over her head. He unclipped her bra, leaving her naked beside him, and removed his own pants. 

“You’re beautiful,” she told him, trailing her hands over his sculpted chest and defined abs, noting the lack of nipples but presence of a navel, and tracing the dark stripes that lined his torso. Her nails scraped over his hipbones and he hissed in a breath and she saw his cock twitch. 

Deciding to indulge her curiosity about his body, she moved so that she was straddling him and saw him watching her carefully. She dipped her head and ran her tongue over the velvety ribbing of his throat, thinking that she could spend hours simply exploring that alien flesh. It vibrated against her lips as he purred and she smiled against him before scraping her teeth along his collarbone and trailing her lips down his chest and abdomen. His hand came up to rest lightly on the back of her head and he relaxed into the mattress until her tongue glided over the length of his cock. His body bowed and his fist clenched in her hair again as she took him into her mouth. “Goddess of Oceans,” he groaned. She sucked him until he released into her mouth and then stalked back up his body, licking her lips. He pulled her to him and kissed her hard, tasting himself on her tongue. “I am undoubtedly keeping you,” he told her.

“Okay,” she sighed and laid down beside him with her head on his shoulder. “What’s your name?”

“Thane Krios,” he answered. “But you, my darling Siha, will call me Sere.”

“My name’s not Siha,” she mumbled as his fingers smoothed through her hair.

“No,” he agreed, “but I cannot exactly go around calling you Shepard, now can I?”

“Guess not,” she said. 

“Sleep, Siha,” he instructed.

“Yes, Sere,” she said and snuggled closer to him.


	5. Chapter 5

He woke to her warm nose against his throat and a contented sigh in his auditory canals. He knew that she hadn’t absorbed enough of his venom through her skin to keep her in the pliant, trusting mood she’d been in the night before, though it was probably enough to make her easier to influence. Still, he remained motionless and waited for her reaction. He suspected that she would be angry with him. She might even try to kill him again. There was something about waking up beside a woman without knowing if she was about to kiss or kill him that made his heart race with anticipation. He felt more alive than he had in a decade. 

She stiffened beside him and he thought he had his answer. Curious to see what she would do, he remained as he was. He felt her watching him and was surprised when, instead of attacking, she slipped quietly from the bed. He listened as she collected her clothing and padded softly from the room. When he heard her on the stairs, he opened his eyes and watched. She was moving stealthily, pulling her shirt over her head as she carefully navigated the staircase, clearly attempting to avoid waking him. He rose from the bed and walked to the doorway and leaned against the frame with his arms over his chest. At the bottom of the stairs, she stopped and pulled her pants on but kept her boots in her hand. She crept across the living area and knelt down by the door. He faded back into the shadows as she glanced up over her shoulder. When she didn’t see him, she turned back to the door and began to work the lock. 

He smirked and walked out onto the balcony to lean forward against the railing and watch. It occurred to him to warn her but he chose not to. Lessons learned via pain tended to be the most memorable. She would learn it now or she would try again later. At least now, he would be there to restart her heart should it prove to be too much for her. Should she manage to circumvent him later, she could kill herself attempting to leave and he might not be able to get to her in time. She worked quickly but carefully and he was unsurprised to see that she did not panic and her hands were steady. He could read her anxiety in the set of her shoulders but she resisted the urge to rush and instead worked competently on the lock. It was keyed to his DNA so no amount of mechanical intervention would allow her to actually get around it but she did not yet know that. He had failsafes in place, of course. If there was a fire or other emergency, the lock would release. He didn’t want her to die, after all. 

He wasn’t incredibly concerned with the prospect of her escape. He’d implanted a tracker in her while she was unconscious aboard his ship so he could find her again and it was keyed to the biometric scanners across the colony. She was now officially registered as an indentured servant so if she tried to escape, she would be apprehended and returned to him. He could then choose to either reclaim her or have her charged with breach of contract and imprisoned. He would not do the latter and intended to make that known to her. She would not escape him that way, either. She was his and the sooner she learned that, the better. 

The lock crackled loudly as it shot electricity through her fingertips. She fell back onto the floor and he jogged down the steps and across the room to her. When he detected no pulse, he injected her with medigel and began doing chest compressions on her. After a few moments, she jerked up and her arm flailed as she coughed. “Be still,” he ordered curtly and pressed her back to the floor with a hand on her shoulder. 

“What now?” she asked in a choked voice. 

“Now I explain to you your circumstances and you decide whether you would prefer to live under those circumstances or die right here,” he said.

“So talk,” she said and stacked her hands nonchalantly behind her head while drawing a knee up. She knew when she was beaten—for the moment, anyway—but the position was clearly deliberately calculated to be as disdainful as she could under the circumstances. He shook his head at her nerve. 

“You belong to me now,” he stated. “There is no escape. There will be no rescue. You will, in time, give yourself to me of your own free will.”

“That is never going to happen,” she said.

He smiled. “We will see, Siha. If not, then I will simply continue to take you as I took you last night.”

He saw the revulsion pass behind her eyes but her voice was steady as she said, “Or I will simply find a way to kill you. Anything can be a weapon if you’re intelligent and creative enough.”

He tipped his head in concession. It was one of the possible outcomes, though an unlikely one. That possibility intrigued him and made this game all the more exciting. She was afraid. He could see it in the shadows behind her eyes. She was also determined and intelligent and had a confidence about her that was more alluring than any outward accoutrement. She was the first person he’d met who could challenge him. She might not have a chance against him when unarmed but give her a weapon and she would rule all of the worlds. 

The thing that intrigued him possibly even more than her confidence was the fact that one of the effects of his venom was to bring out a person’s base nature. He had seen that nature twice now and it was not what he expected. This cool, collected commander was the armor she wore below the armor. The woman herself was compassionate, kind, affectionate, generous, and loving. He wanted to know how she reconciled that with a woman who chose to attempt to kill before she attempted escape, a woman who had killed more people in her relatively short career than he had in his entire life, a woman who had passed through the Omega 4 relay and destroyed an entire species before bringing her crew back whole, a woman who had sent an asteroid into a mass relay and destroyed an entire system without hesitation. He wanted to know how the two vastly different women could live within the same person.

“You may attempt to do so,” he said. “However, I would advise that you be absolutely certain of your success before you make the attempt.”

“Or what?” she asked. “You’ll kill me? Torture me? Rape me again?”

“I will rape you again for my own enjoyment,” he said calmly. “I will kill you only if it is required of me to do so in order to preserve my own life or if you request it of me. I would prefer not to torture you but will do so if you make it necessary.”

“Tell me something,” she said.

“Anything,” he said.

“Are you a complete psychopath or just a monster?” she asked.

He grinned in amusement. “Call me what you will,” he said. “We are both masters of our own trades. Yours is war. Mine is killing. I am an assassin, arguably the best in the galaxy. I began training when I was six years old and made my first kill at twelve. Any concept of morality or ethics I may have been born with were trained out of me within the first year. I was taught to grant death cleanly, to minimize suffering, but events occurred that necessitated a break from that mindset. I attempt to avoid killing innocents unless I am specifically hired to do so but it is not due to any exceptional moral standard.”

“So you’re just a monster, then,” she said, though he saw the horror in her expression when he told her about his training. Pity did not shake her. 

“A reasonable one, at least,” he said. “I am giving you choices, am I not? I am keeping you out of prison and Alliance interrogation rooms. I am willing to provide you with any amenities you may desire.”

“A gilded cage is still a cage,” she said.

“And you would be caged regardless,” he countered. “This, at least, serves some purpose.”

“What purpose is served by my being trapped on Illium?” she asked.

“My pleasure,” he stated. “All I ask of you is your cooperation. Do as I say when I say it and your time with me will be pleasurable for you as well.”

“And if I decline?” she said.

“Garrus Vakarian,” he said.

“What about him?” she asked, tensing.

“You care about him. You trust him. You would go to extraordinary lengths for him,” he said. “As I said, I am an assassin. His continued existence is contingent upon your cooperation. If I must, I will find him, bring him here, and kill him in front of you. And when he is dead, I will move on to the rest of your crew.”

She sat up, her eyes flashing, and snarled, “If you harm him or any of them, I will rip you limb from limb and feed you to my varren after I let him fuck you up the ass.”

“I am not the one who decides their fate, Shepard,” he said, pleased to see that the threat had hit home. “You are. How much do you truly care about them, Commander? Will you accept servitude for them? Will you accept captivity for them?” He leaned forward and she stiffened as he nuzzled her ear. “Will you accept my body into yours for them? I could find them, you know. Right now, Vakarian is in Cipitrine. He has an appointment tomorrow to meet with the Primarch. Your friend Liara T’Soni, the Shadow Broker, is orbiting Hagalaz and searching for you. Miranda Lawson is on the run from Cerberus. The one you call Jack is at Grissom Academy. And your dear doctor is on the Citadel in a research and development lab on Shalta Ward. Your pilot is in Vancouver, aiding the Alliance with the retrofits. I do not just know you, Shepard. I know your crew. I know who you love and I will take them from you one by one if I must. Do you understand?”

“Yes,” she whispered, sounding defeated. “I will kill you someday.”

“I look forward to you trying,” he said and flipped her onto her stomach.


	6. Chapter 6

“Gone?” Garrus repeated. “What do you mean, she’s gone?”

“Just that,” Liara said over the comm. “She has been missing for two weeks. I have attempted to find her but have run into nothing but dead ends. Lieutenant Vega saw nothing. The cameras were all disabled. The soldier who attempted the assassination attempt was killed and I discovered information that linked him to the batarians but they do not seem to know where she is. The Alliance is keeping her disappearance very quiet because they are afraid it will spark a war. Cerberus has no knowledge of her whereabouts, either.”

“I want everything you have on her disappearance, Liara,” Garrus said. “I can’t leave immediately because I’m still working on putting together the task force but as soon as I can, I’ll get to Earth.” 

“I have just sent it to your omni-tool,” she said. “I am on my way to Mars. If you need anything, let me know. In the meantime, you know that I will not give up on her.”

“Thanks for letting me know, Liara,” Garrus said and ended the comm. 

He activated his omni-tool and began reading the reports from the Alliance’s investigation, the guard’s statement, and statements from others who had been in the building. He reviewed security cam footage from the entire base. There was nothing to hint at where she had gone or who had taken her. She had to have been taken. Shepard was honorable. She had been insistent upon turning herself in even when he had vehemently opposed her. She would not just leave. 

Every investigative instinct he had was screaming that something was wrong here. This was a professional job but by whom and why? He may not have been a by-the-book cop and he may have overstepped his bounds to gather intel and he may not have balked at using more advanced interrogation techniques on suspects but he had been a damn good investigator. His instincts were right most of the time. He had figured Saren out with only a minimum of information. He had figured out what was going on with Dr. Saleon when they’d had little more than a sensation of something being off. He called upon all of those skills, however rusty they might be, to find his mate.

None of it helped. None of it worked. There was nothing. There were plenty of people and groups with motive to hurt or kill her but none of them knew anything. There were few people with the means to get to her and take her down but they had solid alibis. Those with the opportunity either did not have the means or had no motivation. He began to suspect the Defense Committee. Shepard had been a thorn in their sides for years. They did not believe her about the Reapers. She was an embarrassment and a threat. It was entirely possible that they had elected to simply get rid of her. But when he proposed that idea to Admirals Anderson and Hackett, it was quickly shot down. They admitted that her disappearance prior to the Bahak incident might have pointed in that direction but if the batarians found out that she had vanished, they would assume the Alliance had set her free. Chaos would follow. 

Days turned to weeks. Garrus traveled to Earth and Anderson allowed him to personally view the apartment. It was still closed off for investigation and access had been limited. Garrus winced at the signs of attack. The door was blown off. A damaged table lay on its side with holographic cards and poker chips strewn about. Beer bottles rested forgotten among the detritus. He tried to take those as positive signs that her captivity had not been entirely unpleasant. The ceiling tiles were damaged and there were scorch marks in the carpet. Debris was scattered across the living area and kitchen. 

“There was an omni-tool chip on the floor here,” Anderson said, gesturing to an evidence marker. “Vega said he gave it to her when the attack happened and she had it installed when he saw her last. We tested for prints and DNA but found nothing. Or, rather, we found something but it didn’t trace back to anyone in any system. Hackett sent it to a mutual friend and she was similarly unable to trace it. Whoever did this was able to remove himself from the system.”

“Definitely a professional,” Garrus said, “but why and who?” He tilted his head back and tried to think, to picture it from her perspective. He didn’t know Vega. He didn’t know the attackers. He did know her. She wouldn’t have been afraid. She would have reacted calmly, intelligently. She’d have taken cover. He moved to the table and put himself in what he judged was her location at the time of the attack. He pictured the lieutenant standing, turning, flipping the table, tossing her the omni-tool chip. He ducked behind the table. Not solid enough. She wouldn’t have wanted to be here. Bullets would punch through this wood like it was nothing. He rolled into cover behind the cabinet and moved to allow room for the lieutenant who’d been there. Flashbang. She would have been blinded, deafened, momentarily disoriented. Vega had said that when it cleared, the attacker had been dead on the floor. “How did he die?”

“Broken neck,” Anderson answered. “No drugs in his system.”

Garrus remained crouched behind the counter. No weapons but her omni-tool. No team but her guard who was looking toward the doorway. Would she have looked there as well? If she believed that there was only one assailant, it was likely. She had been in the apartment for days. She wouldn’t have taken for granted that it was clear but she would have had her attention on the immediate threat. The kidnapper must have snuck up behind her, drugged her, and then drugged Vega before the lieutenant had time to react. But how had he gotten behind the attacker and how had he gotten from the open doorway to the kitchen without being seen? That pushed the bounds of probability even with the disorientation of the flashbang. 

“Up,” he whispered to himself. Human adults didn’t tend to look up for threats unless they were trained to do so. Shepard was but why would she have looked at the ceiling? He walked over to the chalk outline of the dead attacker and stood in the place of the kidnapper. They had a height range based on the angle of the break in the human’s neck which ruled out krogan, turian, and salarians. Quarians didn’t tend to kill from close range given the risk to their suits. A human was the most likely given the location but would a lone human have been able to take Shepard out? “Was the attacker working with the kidnapper, perhaps? Did he decide to betray his partner rather than share in the bounty?”

“We haven’t found anything that points to that, no,” Anderson said. “And if he was going to do that, why not wait until the commander was taken care of? Going in alone was reckless.”

“No,” Garrus said. “This guy wasn’t reckless. He’s too professional and controlled for that.” Garrus looked up again. “Has anyone checked the air vents? Actually gone inside of them?”

“No,” Anderson said. 

Garrus shook his head. They probably hadn’t even considered it. He followed the ductwork to the kitchen and gave a feral grin. “Gotcha.” The vent cover was slightly askew. He wouldn’t have seen it if he hadn’t been looking for it but it was a sign that the kidnapper hadn’t been as attentive to detail as he should have been. 

___

Anderson watched Vakarian work the scene. He still didn’t know Garrus very well. The turian had joined Shepard when she’d taken command of the _Normandy_. What Anderson did know was that he had been loyal to Shepard for years and wherever she was, he was never far behind. It was exceedingly rare to see the commander without her turian sidekick even in Alliance-run news vids. Shepard and Vakarian had been a nearly inseparable team from the moment they’d met. 

Anderson remembered the day he had come to the Citadel to inform the turian of the commander’s death. Garrus had returned to the station to be evaluated for Spectre status and Anderson suspected he’d chosen to pursue it in order to better help Shepard. He would never forget the look on the turian’s face when he opened the door and saw Anderson standing on the other side in full dress blues with his cover in his hands. They were from different races but grief translated across species lines. 

He remembered, too, that horrible memorial service that had been held in her honor, the empty casket, the shell-shocked crew. Garrus had been one of the pallbearers. She hadn’t been there but he’d stood symbolic guard even as it had been loaded on the ship to take to Mindoir and had then accompanied it to the colony and stood silently as it had been lowered into the ground. He hadn’t left until the last shovel of dirt had fallen over it and the monument erected. Then, he’d turned around and no one had seen him again until he’d reappeared by her side two years later.

He had pitied Garrus at the time because he’d recognized what he was seeing. The turian had realized too late that Shepard wasn’t just a friend, wasn’t just a commanding officer. She was far more than that to him and he hadn’t recognized it until she was gone and there was nothing he could do. He’d missed his chance—or so he’d thought—and he was looking at a galaxy that had suddenly grown both emptier and darker. Anderson had assumed that he’d followed Shepard one final time. 

Now, there was none of the grief and none of the regret. At some point since Shepard’s return, the turian’s feelings for her had been acknowledged and returned. This was not the desperation of lost potential but of lost promise, a promise he was determined to get back. As Garrus turned to face him, Anderson realized that he would never give up, never let go, never stop trying to find her no matter how few leads they had nor how hopeless the situation might seem. This wasn’t just a teammate determined to find his leader. The look in the turian’s eyes was feral, a deadly combination of intellect and instinct. He wasn’t just Shepard’s best friend or confidante or even cross-species boyfriend. He was Shepard’s mate in the most primal sense of the word and he would get her back or die trying.

“So let’s follow the trail,” Anderson said. 

The turian was almost too large to fit in the vents but he went anyway. When he found one of her hairs stuck in a joint between two panels, Anderson heard his growl reverberate through the metal tunnel. They came to a branch in the ventilation system and Garrus turned without hesitation. When Anderson questioned him, he said, “I can smell her.” They came out in a building behind HQ and Garrus looked around the room before striding out onto a rooftop and climbing up a ladder. “No cameras up here,” he said, “and humans rarely look up. He’d have felt safe. He’s strong. He would have to be to carry her this distance with her unconscious.” They stopped on the edge of a roof and he pointed across the way. “It was nighttime, dark, and he could use the rooftops to get almost to the docks.” 

He looked down at the space between the building on which they stood and the distance to the next one, wondering how the kidnapper had gotten her across. Garrus walked back toward the center of the roof and turned back to face it. It had been a long time since Anderson had seen a turian’s explosive speed in action but Vakarian demonstrated it when he sprinted across the roof and leaped gracefully across the gap. Anderson was in good shape but he knew without trying that he could not make that jump. Garrus stopped and looked at him before jumping across once more. He wasn’t even short of breath when he said, “It could be an asari. A human couldn’t do it and neither could a batarian. Asari are the right size, have denser musculature, and are biotics.”

“Why would an asari go after Shepard?” Anderson asked. “And how could they do it without Liara knowing?”

“I don’t know,” Garrus said. “I need to talk to her.” His mandibles widened and he growled, “Aria T’Loak. She likes Shepard. She very well may have decided that Shepard was of more use to her on Omega than locked in an Alliance prison. There have been rumors of Cerberus activity around the Omega 4 relay and she knows that Shepard defected. She may have taken her to help get rid of Cerberus around her station. I’ll look into it.”

“Do it,” Anderson said. “I’ll have security start questioning people, see if anyone remembers seeing an asari around. That could also explain why no one remembers seeing anything. If she tampered with their memories, they might not even realize it. We’ll check for missing details, too.”

Garrus nodded. “I have to get back to Palaven. Let me know the minute you find out anything and I’ll do the same.”


	7. Chapter 7

“Are you hungry, Siha?” Thane asked.

“No,” Shepard answered.

He shook his head. Stubborn woman. “You are losing weight. You need to eat.”

“I will eat when I can do so on my own,” she said.

“Is your pride so important to you that you would starve on principle?” he asked. “If the Reapers invaded today, would you be fit enough to fight?”

“Does it matter?” she asked. “Unless they attack Illium and kill you, I’ll still be trapped here with you.” She cocked her head consideringly. “That would be fitting, though, given their insistence upon salvation through destruction. I don’t think that’s quite what Sovereign or Harbinger had in might.”

“I fully intend to return you when the Reapers invade,” he told her. “As I have said before, I know who you are. I could not care less about the rest of the galaxy but I have no desire to die because you are not out there fighting them.”

She laughed bitterly. “So I really am waiting for the Reapers to save me. How ironic.”

“And in the meantime, you should maintain your strength,” he said. “So come, eat.” 

He could see her contemplating her options, weighing her pride against her duty, weighing her hatred of him against her love for others. He enjoyed watching her inner struggle and knowing that she would ultimately sacrifice herself again. He still had not decided if he found her loyalty to others admirable or pitiable but he did envy it. She had yet to turn that loyalty to him but he enjoyed taking advantage of that which she gave to others. He had taken concession after concession from her using her loved ones as a weapon and it gave him a thrill each time she gave in.

This, however, was one area in which she was being particularly stubborn. He had informed her that she would eat and drink only by his hand and she’d balked. She didn’t refuse to do it. She simply refused to eat or drink. It was a simple matter to get her to concede by using his venom but he wanted her to do it while entirely lucid. She needed to come to rely on him for everything good she received, to associate him with positive things and the fulfillment of needs rather than only with negative events and the brutalization he occasionally inflicted upon her. 

Most of the time, he took her while she was high on his venom. He got a sadistic thrill out of hearing her beg for him and cry out his name while knowing that he was taking something from her that she did not truly want to give. He enjoyed the way that she nuzzled into him and her hands and mouth sought him out of her own accord while she was drugged when she avoided his touch so completely when she was sober. 

A delightful part of her base personality was an almost insatiable desire for sex. She kept it under tight control when she was lucid and he wondered if any but Vakarian knew of her appetites. He wondered, in fact, if even Vakarian knew the full extent of them. When she was drugged, nothing was too debauched, nothing too depraved for her. She would allow him to do anything he wished and ask for more as long as he started when she was drugged. When she was sober, just the touch of his hand on her skin sent revulsion across her features. He took great pleasure in taking her that way and describing in vivid detail his memories of her drugged hedonism. 

She sighed and allowed him to pull her down into his lap. He turned her so that her legs were draped across his thighs and selected a piece of fruit from his plate. He didn’t need to remind her what would happen if she were to bite him. He rarely had to remind her of anything. She was exceptionally intelligent. She attempted to take the fruit without touching him but he tucked it so that she was forced to allow his fingers entry into her mouth. He made her suck on them before drawing back and tracing her lip with his fingertip. She swallowed and he decided he was going to take her mouth when she was finished eating. As punishment for resisting him, he would give her just enough venom to make her body burn for him while leaving her mind aware that she didn’t want it.

He was rarely rough with her when he took her while she was lucid. A large part of his plan involved inducing the human psychological phenomenon of Stockholm Syndrome. A lack of abuse on his part combined with help from his venom and positive associations with meeting her needs would come to be seen as kindness. She would eventually decide that he had her best interests at heart and soften to him. He had no doubt that by the end of this, he would own her mind, body, heart, and soul. He had decided she would love him just as strongly as she feared and loathed him. The dichotomy aroused him and he saw her suppress a shudder as his cock stirred against her leg. He fed her another piece of fruit. 

When they had cleared the plate, he stroked his hands along her face and tucked her hair behind her ears. “What do you say, Siha?” he asked.

“Thank you, Sere,” she muttered dutifully if resentfully. 

“I believe a woman as intelligent as you could think of a better way to thank me, don’t you agree?” he asked. 

“I could take you out of your misery,” she offered. 

He chuckled. “Perhaps someday you will succeed in doing so, Siha, but not today. Today I wish to claim your throat again. Kneel.”

“I’d rather not,” she said.

“Your desires interest me only when they involve worshiping my body,” he told her, sliding a hand up her bare leg. He kept her nude with only a circular metal collar around her throat and matching metal rings around her wrists and ankles. He had tried leather but she’d broken through them. The metal was less comfortable for her but she couldn’t get out of them and he liked the ability to clip her into place on his bed. It protected her from more of her ill-advised escape attempts while he was sleeping and reduced the chances of her killing him in his sleep, though he had no doubt that she was simply biding her time until she felt capable of doing so and getting loose. 

He saw her pulse speed up in her throat and her eyes dilate as his fingers trailed over her exposed center though she kept her thighs clamped tightly together. She had learned that he enjoyed it when she fought him so had traded active fighting for resistance. He enjoyed that, too, but it didn’t heat his blood the way it did when she fought. He was disappointed but admired her willingness to change tactics to adjust for him. He collected the moisture that gathered and circled the bundle of nerve endings at her center with his finger. Her jaw clenched but he felt the flutter of her body under his fingertips. 

This was one of his favorite methods of delivering his venom to her. She absorbed tiny amounts through her skin and large ones through her mouth but her core absorbed it perfectly and had the added benefit of simultaneously arousing and disgusting her. These small displays of violence against her were his favorite. He had no desire to cause her physical pain beyond the reactions she gave to it and she was strong enough and disciplined enough that he had to all but harm her in order to draw them out of her. The reward wasn’t worth the effort. This, though, made her suffer beautifully. He slipped his fingers inside of her and her head fell back against his shoulder. “I hate you,” she said forcefully. 

“I know,” he told her. “Would you rather suck or fuck me?”

“Neither,” she answered. 

Her moan as he brushed his thumb over her clit belied her answer. “You lie,” he said against her ear. “You want me. Tell me where.”

“In hell,” she said as her hips moved and her fingers dug into his thighs. 

He bit her shoulder and she cried out and arched into his hand, driving his fingers deep inside of her. Her legs fell open and she shook her head in rejection even as her feet hooked around his ankles and she began to fuck herself on his fingers. His cock slid along the line of her ass and he groaned. Her internal muscles flexed, drawing him deeper into her and her moisture dripped down his fingers. He curled them, seeking out that textured patch that made her lose all sense of control. When he found it, she gave a strangled cry and her entire body tensed. He jerked his fingers out of her, leaving her panting and mewling in his arms. 

“I had thought to take your mouth,” he said, “but I believe I will fuck you instead. Your ass is so tight when you are like this.”

“No,” she said. “I’ll…I’ll suck.”

“It is too late for that option, Siha,” he said, freeing himself from the restriction of his pants. “Will you be a good girl and get on your knees for me or shall I fuck you like this without lubrication?”

“I hate you,” she whispered again as she slid off of his lap and knelt down on the floor with her ass in the air and her face in her hands. 

“You hate yourself for how much you love this, Siha,” he said, kneeling behind her and dragging his cock along her soaking entrance. “You were designed to be used like this. Your body knows this and begs for it. It is only your mind that rebels.” He lined up with her tight hole and began to press into her, savoring the way her body attempted to reject him. He’d loosened her up enough that it was a losing battle. “Do you feel this, Siha?”

“This hurts you,” she said in a deep, mocking tone. “Yeah, yeah, I’ve heard it all before.”

“What did I tell you about mocking me?” he asked.

“Not you I’m mocking this time,” she said. “You sound like Harbinger. ‘I know you feel this, Shepard. This hurts you.’ Tell me you’re ‘assuming direct control’ and I’ll assume I’m getting fucked by a Collector drone.”

Her statement was so unexpected that he laughed aloud. “I believe that is the first time I have ever been compared to a Reaper.”

“You’re certainly heartless enough for it,” she said. 

“I had a heart once,” he told her as he pressed deeper into her, feeling her stretch around him. “It only brought me pain as has yours.”

He saw her fingers flex in her hair as she visibly worked to relax enough to take him without pain. She had learned already that resistance once he was inside of her only hurt her and made him more eager. This was one of the few ways he could hurt her and get a reaction without harming her. She had pleased him with her unexpected show of humor even if it was bitter, though, so he went slowly and allowed her to adjust. It had the added benefit of allowing him to feel her silken heat glide over his ridges. He thought that her ass was his favorite place on her body. Drell females did not participate in anal sex and it was unpleasant for the males. She, on the other hand, felt like she had been crafted for his pleasure. He claimed her ass at least as often as any of her other holes. 

He seated himself inside of her and waited as her body absorbed the venom on his cock. He knew it was working when she rolled her hips slightly and cursed. He began to move in long, steady, rolling thrusts that withdrew him almost completely before hilting as deep inside of her as his body would go. He heard her whimper of desire and gripped her hips in his hands as he sped his pace and increased his force. He leaned forward and said against her ear, “Taking your ass is my favorite part of the day, Siha. You are so tight and hot here and your shame creates lovely blooms on your cheeks. What would your turian think if he saw you like this, on your knees with your face flushed as your drell lover’s big emerald cock violated your tight pink ass?”

“He would kill you,” she said. 

“Would he?” he asked. “Would he be able to tell that you did not want it or would he look and see a willing participant? Your shame looks like desire and you move with me. I can feel your wetness and hear the needy sounds you try to suppress. To an uninformed observer, you appear to be enjoying this.”

“Never,” she vowed.

“Oh, but you do,” he said. “You begged for it just last night, in fact. ‘Please, Thane, oh, Sere, please. I want you to fuck me in the ass. I want you to fuck me hard. It’s yours. Take it.’”

“That doesn’t count,” she insisted as her cheeks heated further. “I was stoned off my ass because of you.”

“I fucked you for hours, Siha,” he pointed out. “On three separate occasions during the night. My venom had worn off by the end of it and still you begged. I do not have to keep you drugged anymore. It simply provides you with an excuse to let go in the initial stages. You want me, Shepard. You may despise me but you want my body. It is yours as yours is mine. Take it as I take you.”

“I don’t want you,” she insisted even as her breathing grew shallow and she tightened around him. “I despise you.”

“You do not have to like me to desire me,” he stated. “Come for me, Siha.”

“No,” she said but the word ended on a moan as he dragged his fingers along her folds and thrust them into her, massaging his cock through her walls. “Oh, fuck,” she groaned and dropped her forehead to the floor. 

She covered her face with her hands again as she came around him and he buried himself deep within him and felt his release spill out into her ass. He held himself still for a moment and then pulled out of her. “Remain in that position until I release you,” he ordered. “If you lose my seed, I will have to replace it.”

“Yes, Sere,” she acknowledged with misery and shame clouding her voice.

He patted her wet pussy and said, “Should you desire a career change, I would give you a sterling recommendation as a fantastic cock slut.”

“Go to hell,” she muttered. 

“We are already there, Siha,” he informed her.


	8. Chapter 8

Shepard moaned and threw her head back as Thane’s hand moved between her legs, driving into her. The other slid over her ass to press the butt plug he’d demanded she wear deeper into her. His teeth scraped over her clit and she felt his tongue lathe her abused flesh. The venom haze was fading, just as he’d said days ago on his floor and, just as he’d said, she was still here, still begging, still loving the way he made her feel. His body glowed blue in the dim room, dark energy flickering over his emerald scales like flame, and she gasped as she felt the tingle of it over her skin and deep inside of her. 

“Please, Sere,” she gasped, raking her nails over his back. “Harder. Fuck me harder.”

His hand curved and she felt herself being stretched almost impossibly far as his knuckles worked past the entrance of her body. She gripped his shoulders tightly as she bowed up into him and then his entire hand was inside of her and she could feel the bones of his wrist against her entrance as he moved his fingers within her, stroking the butt plug through her walls. His tongue traced around his wrist as he fisted her harder. “Who knew the Savior of the Citadel was such a shameless slut?” he said against her. “With only a minimum of venom, I could likely fuck you in front of the Council and you would beg for more. Are you this wanton with Vakarian?”

“No, Sere,” she moaned. She wasn’t. The sex with Garrus was good—really, really good—but she was generally the aggressor there and he was far more conservative in his tastes. She didn’t know if he was simply satisfied with vanilla sex or if he was afraid to ask her for more but she had been perfectly content with their sex life even if it hadn’t fed into her darker desires. 

“I want him to watch me fuck you,” he said. “Perhaps when we return, should he join you again, I will take you in front of him. I might even be so generous as to allow him to join in. After all, what truer declaration of ownership is there than to share, loan, or give away what belongs to you? Would you like that, Siha? Would you like to have your lover here now? Would you take him into your mouth and moan around him as I move within you?” Her toes dug into the mattress as she pictured it. “I could give you enough venom to allow you to experience it, Siha. Do you want that? Or would you prefer to wait for reality?”

“Why?” she asked. “Why include him?” It had to be a trap or another form of his sadism. 

“Because I enjoy contradiction and dichotomy. It arouses me to think of the disparity that would be involved even in our identical actions. When he enters you, he is making love to you. When I enter you, I am raping you. Yet you cry out for both and only we would know. He would be complicit in your abuse while having no idea he was doing so.”

“So you would victimize him, too,” she said.

“Hmm,” he replied, “I would victimize the galaxy if it meant feeling you respond to me this way. Do not try to deny it. Your body betrays you. You are getting off on the idea.” 

The hell of it was, she did get off on the idea. She didn’t like the idea of hurting Garrus. She would never willingly hurt Garrus. But he would be unaware and she could have them both, one she loved and one she didn’t quite hate as much as she should. Her emotions toward him were shifting even without the aid of his venom and she wondered what subconscious suggestions he had made when he had her so deep in her drugged haze that her memories were nothing but mist. Her conscious mind told her that she despised his touch but her body and now her emotions longed for it. She was growing addicted to him and she didn’t know if it was the drug or the man himself. He was hijacking her. She knew it wasn’t healthy but damned if she knew how to stop it. 

He licked her again, depositing more venom onto her and she felt the warmth travel up her body. “You should be grateful to me, Siha,” he said. “What have I denied you but freedom? I give you every desire of your heart but the ability to deny or to leave me. Would you love me more if I give you this, too? When we return together to the _Normandy_ , would you like it if I give you your lover?”

“Yes, Sere,” she said as her heart insisted he was right. He was kind and he was good. He didn’t hurt her unless she provoked him. He lavished her with attention and gifts. He would give her Garrus as well. 

“As you wish, Siha,” he said and slid his hand out of her body. He moved over her and lined himself up with her suddenly vacant entrance and said, “Show me how grateful you are.”

She rolled with him so that he was on his back and she was straddling his hips and leaned down to press her lips against his. Their tongues met and danced as she lowered herself onto him and trailed her hands down his chest. She’d learned where and how to touch him to draw reactions from him and she used that knowledge now. She wanted to see him want her as much as she wanted him. She wanted to hear him beg for her. She wanted his control to break. She rode him as she licked and nipped at his velvety throat and nuzzled the ruffled line of his frill. He gasped and she traced it first with her tongue and then with her teeth. 

His hands rested on her hips but he did not move her, choosing instead to allow her to move on her own. He moved with her, meeting her as she sank down onto him and pulling back as she raised herself up. He felt exquisite and she straightened and planted her hands on his chest as she allowed her head to fall back. His hands trailed up her body to cover her breasts and he tweaked her nipples with his fingers. Like this, they could be any other pair of lovers and the remnants of his venom suggested to her that they were. Their relationship was unorthodox, true, but was it any less valid? A small, sober part of her cried, _Yes!_ but her heart ignored it. 

He sat up and slid his hand into her hair and she whispered, “Thane,” before kissing him deeply. His other arm banded around her waist and she wrapped her legs around his, allowing him to finally lift and move her the way he wanted. He tilted her head and deepened the kiss and she felt his fingers stroke her hip. Warmth surged through her, the warmth of emotion rather than venom, and she traced his features with her fingertips as his tongue danced lightly with hers. 

“You are mine,” he whispered back.

“Yes, Sere,” she answered.

___

It was too easy and that made him suspicious. Later that evening, he took her deep into her venom haze and questioned her. In doing so, he learned something new about her base nature that he didn’t entirely understand. It was in her nature to love. That idea was so utterly foreign to him that he couldn’t grasp it. He had never truly loved another. He had _cared_ about Irikah but if love meant putting another first, he had not done that. He had not even loved his own son. He had never truly had a father and he’d had no idea how to be one. Putting his own selfish desires aside for the sake of another was something that had never occurred to him. It had been easy to leave Kolyat in the care of others and pursue his own desires.

Shepard was different. Everything she did involved self-sacrifice for others. She did not just love the turian. She loved everyone she knew. She didn’t seem to realize it because she had never experienced love as a child. She had revealed to him that her father had beaten and abused her and her mother had stood by and allowed it to happen. She had taken that lonely childhood and done the opposite with her life of what he’d done with his. She gave the love she’d never received to all whom she deemed worthy and she earned theirs in return. She was dangerous to her enemies but it took little effort to turn one into a friend. Hate was the foreign concept for her. Love was far easier for her and simple kindness could turn hate into love. He didn’t know if that made her weak or much stronger than he was. She was held hostage to those she loved and yet she continued to do it anyway. 

He could comprehend this about her but he could not return it. He would share her with the turian not because it would make her happy but because he would enjoy bringing an unwitting player into their little game. He would not give her to him entirely. He would not let her go. She seemed content with the idea of having them both and seemed to believe that the turian would choose to share her rather than lose her completely. He contemplated sharing her and then taking her away but he sensed that to do so would break her entirely and he liked her spirit. It made her interesting. A broken toy was good for nothing. He would either share her permanently or keep her to himself. He wondered how much more she would give him out of gratitude rather than fear. He had utilized threats to bring her this far but now that he understood more about her, he thought he had found a better motivator. 

He looked into her eyes, seeing the glaze of her drugged state, and said, “You may have your turian, Siha, but you belong to me. Should you be forced to choose between us, you will choose me. Do you understand?”

“Yes, Sere,” she said dreamily. “Garrus is mine and I am yours. Are you mine, too?”

“My body is yours,” he answered. It was true. All she had to do was touch him and he responded to her like none other. His desire for her was a thing all its own and he had no problem with conceding that one thing to her. She could have her turian and his body. He was taking everything else.

\---

“Aria knows nothing,” Liara told Garrus over the QEC. “Shepard is not on Omega. Aria herself is currently fighting Cerberus. If she had Shepard, she would be utilizing her.”

“Then where is she?” Garrus asked. He looked haggard and worn, overloaded by stress and worry, and the anger he’d once carried like a second skin had settled back onto him. He looked both dangerous and afraid and Liara thought it was a volatile combination. 

“I do not know,” Liara answered. 

She didn’t understand how Shepard had simply disappeared so completely. She was just…gone. Liara had utilized every contact she had, searched every database, applied every one of her resources to finding the commander and there was nothing. All she came up with were blank spaces. She had begun searching for absence of evidence rather than evidence itself. A relay activated with no record of a ship passing through. A transaction processed from an account that didn’t exist. Whoever had done this was very good and very clever and he knew how to make things disappear. Liara had searched biometric scans on every known world for Shepard’s data and had found nothing.

“I’m going back to Earth,” Garrus said. “I’ll look again.”

“Are you certain that’s wise, Garrus?” Liara asked. “It has been three months. What new evidence do you expect to find?”

“I don’t know,” he said. “But I can’t just sit here and do nothing. My task force is ready. I have everything in place that I can get. I’ve advised all that I can advise and they still aren’t taking me seriously. I’m useless here. I won’t be useless for Shepard, too.”

“I am getting reports from Kar’Shan,” Liara said. “I am afraid the Reapers have hit their system. It will not be long before they reach the rest of the galaxy and your people will need you then.”

“My people have the Primarch and the Hierarchy,” he said stubbornly. “Shepard just has us. How much effort is the Alliance putting into finding her?”

“Very little,” Liara conceded, “and now that the batarians are busy with the Reapers, that will likely become none until the Reapers arrive on Earth. Then, they will want her but they will not have the resources to find her.”

“So we’re all Shepard has,” Garrus said. “We can’t let her down. I’m going to Earth.”

Liara nodded. “I am still on Mars. I have what I came for and will be transferring it to the Alliance within the week. I will join you when I do.”

“Thanks, Liara,” Garrus said. “See you soon.”

“Good luck,” she said and cut the comm. 

She rubbed her forehead with her fingers and sighed. The war was about to begin and Shepard was missing. Without her, their chances even with the Prothean device were negligible. The galaxy _needed_ Shepard. Liara cursed whomever had taken her. They would learn their lesson soon enough when the entire galaxy fell to the Reapers because Shepard was not there to lead them. Liara shook her head. She had done all she could do for Shepard for the moment. Now, she had to finish gathering information on the device and hope that she was not going to unleash something that was going to destroy them all.


	9. Chapter 9

Thane entered the room where Shepard sat reading a book on philosophy. He tossed her clothing to her and said, “Dress, Siha. We must go. Now.”

“What’s going on, Sere?” she asked, closing the book and stepping into her underwear. 

He spoke while he worked, collecting their things in individual bags for travel. They would not return here again. “The Reapers have reached batarian space. They seem to be occupied with harvesting rather than moving forward into the rest of the galaxy but that will not take long given the Hegemony’s practices. They cannot organize a resistance. Kar’Shan has already fallen and refugees are streaming onto the Citadel. It is time to return to Earth.”

“You’re coming with me?” she asked as she laced up her boots. She stood and caught the bag he threw at her and looped it over her shoulder before following him into the next room where he began stowing his weapons. 

“Of course, Siha,” he said. “I told you that I would. Is that a problem?”

“No,” she said. “Why would it be? I’m glad you’re coming. I’d miss you if the world ended and you weren’t by my side.”

He paused in what he was doing to turn and pull her to him. He pressed his forehead against hers and breathed in the scent of her. Her hand cupped his face and he kissed her firmly before releasing her and turning back to his task. He did not love her but he desired her and she stirred something in him that he had never experienced before. A part of him wanted to take her and run, to find somewhere safe where he could keep her sheltered and protected, but he believed her when she said that nowhere would be safe. He had to let her fight and that meant that he had to risk losing her. She was his most valuable possession and the idea was untenable but he could think of no other solution.

He collected their things and scanned the house a final time before directing her to the door. She didn’t react when he simply slid his hand over the lock and it disengaged. He led her to the skycar and directed it to the docks. She followed obediently onto his ship and waited patiently as he set the course. They would go to the Citadel first and blend in with the refugee ships and then either contact the Alliance or take a transport to Earth. He would not risk docking on Earth again and potentially having his ship recognized. 

He had made plans for this eventuality and he sought Shepard out in the tiny mess. She came willingly into his arms and he felt a small spurt of satisfaction over how well he had trained her. Vakarian had reached her heart through loyalty and friendship. He had reached it through sex, manipulation, and venom. He didn’t care if her love for the turian was more true. He only cared that she was his and would remain that way. He would ensure it. She tipped her head back and accepted his kiss and the strong dose of venom he released into it. She was acclimated to it now and the effect was immediate. She softened in his hold and pressed herself more fully against him. She was addicted to him. He was her fix and she would need it like she needed to breathe. 

“Siha,” he murmured against her lips. “Who do you belong to?”

“You, Sere,” she answered as she did now even when she was sober. 

“Who am I to you?” he asked.

“My master,” she answered. 

He smiled at her response and looked indulgently down at her. “I do not think others will accept that response, my darling. I am your rescuer. I recognized you and saved you from the one who had captured you.”

She looked up at him in confusion. “But you captured me, Sere.”

“You and I know that,” he said, “but others must not or we will be separated. Do you want us to be separated?”

“No, Sere,” she answered. 

“Then who would be the most believable subject to have captured you?” he asked. “It must be unverifiable but plausible.”

She pursed her lips as she thought about it. “Eclipse,” she finally answered. “A group of sisters angry that I killed their leader. You destroyed them and rescued me. Mercenary groups come and go.”

He considered it. “Eclipse is currently at war with itself on Illium. The body count has been extraordinary and law enforcement is content to allow them to destroy themselves as long as their war does not spill over into the civilian population. That will combine truth with the lie. And if Dr. T’Soni wishes to join her mind to yours?”

“I can keep her out,” she said. “I know how to compartmentalize.”

“Is that what you have done with me?” he asked. “Have you compartmentalized a part of yourself that I cannot touch?” He saw a moment of fear flash across her face and nodded. He knew it had been too easy even with her base nature. “Deconstruct it,” he ordered. “You do not need defenses around me. I will keep you safe.”

“From everyone but yourself,” she answered.

“Of course,” he said. “But why do you need to be protected from me? I value you. I would not break you.”

“You already have,” she said. 

“Then I cannot break you further,” he said. “Either way, you need no defenses. You love me, do you not?”

“Yes, Sere,” she answered with a relieved sigh. 

“Then you must trust me,” he said. 

“Okay,” she answered. Venom haze made reasoning difficult for her when it came to figuring out his motives and she was already conflicted when it came to him. She did not entirely grasp the concept of mistrusting someone she loved and she believed herself in love with him. She would break down her barriers under venom haze and that would translate into complete trust when she was sober.

He took her face in his hands and said, “When you think of your captivity, I wish for you to remember the horrors, the pain, the fear. But when you think of me, I wish for you to forget the harm I have done to you. Remember only the good things. Remember the way I made you cry out in pleasure but not that I took you against your will. Remember that I fed you from my hands but not that you did not wish to eat that way. Remember that I held you through the night but not that I tied you to the bed to do it. Remember the things that would make you happy. Forget the pain.”

“I would like that, Sere,” she said and smiled at him.

“Strip,” he ordered. “I would have you naked again.”

She gave him an alluring smile as she obeyed. When they were both nude, he picked her up and pushed her back against the bulkhead. Her legs wrapped around his waist and her arms went around his neck. She kissed him ardently as he slammed into her and he drank her cries of pleasure. Satisfaction, pleasure, accomplishment, even victory, heated his blood. By convincing her to destroy the last of her barriers against him, he had completed his ownership of her. She would love and want him without reservation and would believe that it was genuine. It was the perfect crime, the most purely violent and brutal act he could commit against her. She would be violated and she would not even know it. 

“Please, Sere,” she gasped. “I need you.”

“I am here, Siha,” he murmured against her ear as he drove into her. She tightened around him and arched against him, giving herself completely over to him. When she came, it was with words of love rather than words of hatred and he smiled against her throat. “I love you, too, Siha,” he lied.


	10. Chapter 10

“Vakarian,” Admiral Anderson said, striding purposefully into the room where Garrus sat with datapads strewn across the desk. Frankly, Garrus was glad for the distraction. Months with no word, no leads, and no clues had taken their toll. He’d read these reports so many times he had them memorized. He looked up and his gullet clenched when he saw he expression on the admiral’s face. 

“Shepard?” he asked.

“Worse,” Anderson said. “Reapers. They’re pouring through the Charon relay into the Sol system. We’ve lost contact with the fleet. I need you to come with me.”

Garrus rose and followed the admiral down a hallway and up a staircase. “Any word from Palaven?”

“Taetrus has gone dark,” Anderson answered. “I’m sorry but we need you. With Shepard gone, we have to get help. I need you to take the _Normandy_ and go to the Council. Maybe they’ll listen to you. We have no one else to advocate for us. Udina’s influence over them is negligible. If a non-human goes to them and tells them how bad it is, they might be willing to do something.” The admiral stopped and faced him. “None of us are going to give up on Shepard but until she is found, you are going to have to step into her shoes. You’re the only one who’s actually seen them. You and Shepard spoke to one and then blew the damn thing up. You know her allies. People know she trusts you and they’ll trust you, too. You’re the closest thing we have to Shepard right now. This isn’t about species anymore. We fight together or we die together.”

“I’ll do what I can,” he said, “but I need to get word to Palaven.”

The admiral nodded. “Of course. First, though, we need to get to command. I’ll have to get you cleared to captain the _Normandy_ in Shepard’s absence. They aren’t going to like it. I may have to put Alenko as your XO. But the way I see it, the _Normandy_ is a joint human and turian ship. She’s been under human command for years. It won’t hurt to let a turian take it for a while.”

Kaidan and Shepard’s guard met them outside of the committee chambers. The biotic informed Anderson that he’d been assigned to the _Normandy_ and the admiral nodded. Kaidan looked past him and said, “Garrus?”

Anderson said, “He’s going to be taking Shepard’s place until we can find her. You’ll be his XO. Can you handle that, Major?”

“You’re giving the _Normandy_ to a turian?” Alenko demanded. “Admiral, you know she should be mine. I served on her under Shepard and I’m actually in the Alliance. It’s nothing against Garrus but he’s a turian, not a human.”

“And the _Normandy_ is not legally an Alliance vessel,” Anderson said. “It belongs to Shepard. The one you served on is gone. Garrus knows this ship. He knows Joker. He has been Shepard’s acting executive officer for years. He will be again when she comes back. That means the ship is his in her absence. You can either deal with that or I can reassign you.”

Kaidan huffed. “She’s probably with Cerberus.”

“She isn’t,” Garrus said. 

“I guess you would know,” Kaidan said. “You worked for them, too.”

“I worked for Shepard,” Garrus insisted. “And she only worked for Cerberus because your Alliance wouldn’t help her deal with the Collectors. She tried to come back. She would have left Cerberus in a heartbeat if the Alliance had given her so much as the time of day. She’d have explained that to you if you hadn’t turned your back on her.”

“Gentlemen!” Anderson shouted. “Enough! We have bigger things to worry about than ancient history. Let it go! Vega, you’re with them. Come on, Garrus.”

Garrus followed him into the chambers. The humans at the dais looked at him in surprise and he half expected them to throw him out but they began explaining the situation. He confirmed that it was, in fact, the Reapers. Their shock made him angry. If they’d just listened to her warnings, they would have been prepared. Instead, they’d thrown her to the varren. One of them looked at him and said, “What do we do?”

“There’s only one thing we can do,” he said. “We fight or we die. We come together not as individual species but as one galaxy or we fall.”

“That’s it?” another demanded. “That’s your plan?”

“You’d have had a better one if you’d listened to Shepard in the first place!” he said. “But now the invasion has just started and we’re already behind the curve. If anybody’s got a better idea, let’s hear it.”

“Admiral,” one of the soldiers off to the side said. “We’ve lost contact with the moon.”

“The moon?” Anderson gasped. 

Garrus closed his eyes and shook his head. They would be here any minute. Someone put up a news feed showing that he was wrong. They were already here. Something caught his eye and he looked up to see a Reaper descending on the city. The members of the Defense Committee stood and moved toward the window with expressions of disbelief on their faces. “Get away from that window!” he shouted. “Move! Now!”

Anderson was already running for the back of the room and Garrus turned to accompany him as the Reaper’s beam cut across the city and slammed into the building, sending broken glass and furniture flying. Garrus was thrown into the wall and it took him a moment to regain his bearings. Anderson was alive but the rest of the committee was dead. Garrus drew his assault rifle and followed Anderson out of the window. 

It was chaos. Reapers were everywhere. The once-beautiful city was turning to rubble in minutes. People screamed in the streets below and fire and death filled the air. Wherever she was, Garrus was glad that Shepard wasn’t here to see this. Her people's homeworld was already falling and there was nothing they could do to stop it. Nothing he had seen so far had prepared him for what he was witnessing. What was he going to tell Primarch Fedorian? He was supposed to be the expert and yet he felt just as lost as everyone else. 

And now Anderson wanted him to take Shepard’s place? To lead the galaxy in this fight? The last time he’d led anything, everyone under his command had died. _No,_ his mind interjected. _The last time you led a team, you helped Shepard take down the Collectors._ But that had been with her help. Everything he tried to do without her failed. Hell, he’d been a damn cop for ten years and he couldn’t even find her!

He ran behind Anderson as his thoughts swirled violently in his mind. He needed Shepard. They all needed Shepard. The Council wouldn’t listen to him. He wasn’t a Spectre. He probably couldn’t even get an audience with them. He shot the husks climbing up the wall in front of them and followed Anderson down onto a balcony where he took down more husks before turning to run from the Reaper blast that knocked him off his feet. “In here,” Anderson said and Garrus followed him into the burning building. He killed the husk at the door and held it open for the admiral before following him through.

“They came so fast,” Anderson said as he tossed debris out of the way. “I know Shepard warned us but did she know it would be like this?”

“I don’t think anyone knew it would be like this,” Garrus said, clearing a path for the admiral. He looked out on the narrow ledge they would have to traverse and wondered if he could make it. A human could press back against the wall. He was afraid he was too big. The admiral motioned him forward and he stepped carefully out. There was just enough room but his weapons scraped against the wall and when a Reaper hit another part of the building, he almost fell. The admiral caught him and he breathed a sigh of relief. “Thanks.”

“You have to get to the Council,” Anderson said again. “Convince them to listen. We will help in the fight but we can’t do it on our own.”

“What makes you think they’ll even give me an audience?” he asked, stepping gratefully onto solid floor.

“You’re part of Shepard’s crew,” the admiral said. “That should at least get you in the door.”

“They’ve never listened to her,” Garrus pointed out as they climbed through another broken window. “What makes you think they’ll listen to me?”

“Then you make them listen!” the admiral ordered and Garrus could see where Shepard had gotten her leadership style. The human had no hesitation about ordering around a highly-ranked turian officer. Shepard, despite having never been promoted past commander—he suspected due to her insistence on going her own way and refusing to follow the status quo—didn’t either.

They found a pair of soldiers and a group of vaguely batarian-looking Reaper troops beside a downed gunship and located the radio to call in the _Normandy_. As far as Garrus could tell, humans didn’t keep their high-ranking officers in the field like turians did but that didn’t mean that the admiral had forgotten how to fight. They held their position until the ship appeared and Joker’s voice came over the radio. “The cavalry has arrived! And you’ll never guess who we have on board!”


	11. Chapter 11

Garrus told himself not to hope as he sprinted toward the ship that was more home to him than any place on Palaven. The cargo bay opened as Joker swung her around and four soldiers lined up at the entrance with rifles at their shoulders. Garrus forgot the admiral and ran as hard as he could, leaping the last several feet onto the deck before the ship even made contact. “Shepard!” he exclaimed. 

“Garrus?” she asked, looking at him in surprise. “What are you doing here?”

“Looking for you,” he said. “Where the hell have you been?”

“Good question,” the admiral called out. 

“Long story,” she called back. “Trying to get back here. You going to lock me up again or let me fight?”

“You’re going to the Citadel,” Anderson answered. “Talk to the Council. Garrus can fill you in.” The admiral tossed something shiny at her and she caught it without taking her eyes off of him. “Consider yourself reinstated, _Commander_.”

“Come on, then,” she said.

“I’m not going!” Anderson answered. “These men need a leader. I’m staying here. Now, go!”

Shepard looked like she was going to argue for a moment but then nodded. “I’ll come back for you,” she promised. “And I’ll bring every fleet I can.”

“Good luck, Commander!” the admiral shouted and turned and ran.

The cargo bay closed and Shepard strode away with her gun still in hand. The drell Garrus had barely noticed followed her as did Kaidan and Vega. Garrus jogged after her and heard Vega say, “What the hell? He can’t just order us to leave!”

“He just did,” Shepard snapped. 

Garrus was impatient to speak to her, to touch her and make sure she was real, to find out where she had been and who the man beside her was but he waited as she dressed down the lieutenant and reassured the major and then spoke with Admiral Hackett. She gave the order to gear up and Garrus took his opportunity. He pulled her between a stack of crates and heard the drell growl but ignored him. If Shepard didn’t want him anymore, she could damn well tell him herself but he was going to make sure that she was all right before he stepped aside and he was going to hold her in his arms one more time. 

She came willingly, even eagerly, and wrapped her arms around him. He could feel the fine tremors running through her body as he held her close and buried his face in her hair. There was a scent on her that he didn’t recognize, something dry and vaguely sweet, but he ignored it, too. “I was so worried about you,” he said. “Where have you been?”

“Remember that Eclipse leader we killed on Illium?” she asked. He nodded. “Well, apparently, her sisters weren’t too happy about that. One of them captured me. She drugged me so I couldn’t fight back and took me to Illium. I’ve been trying to get away and get back ever since.”

“Who’s the drell?” he asked in a low voice.

“Thane Krios,” she answered. “He saved me. He saw me, recognized me, and took out the entire group of them in less than a minute. I was…in bad shape. The things they did to me…it was awful. Thane took care of me until I was well enough to travel and then he brought me back.”

Garrus pulled back and looked down at her with hope and fear warring in his chest. “Are you two…?”

“If I said yes, would you make me choose?” she asked and he could see his hope and fear reflected in her eyes. 

“If I say yes, will I lose you?” he asked. She looked at the drell, who nodded slightly. Garrus snarled at him to stay out of this and looked down at Shepard. “I can’t lose you again.”

“Then don’t make me choose,” she said. “If he’d made me choose, he’d lose me, too. No ultimatums, Garrus. I love you but…I love him, too. He saved me from months of torture and abuse. Get to know him. You’ll like him.”

Garrus glanced at the drell who was still looking at her with blatant possession in his eyes and doubted it but said, “Well, if I have him to thank for getting you back, I guess I can try.”

“Thank you,” she whispered. “I can’t lose you, either.”

He dropped his forehead to hers and held it there until the drell said simply, “Siha.” Shepard straightened and pulled away from him with a somewhat sad smile. She went to the drell who drew her into his arms and brushed his lips over hers. “We are a few minutes from Mars. I would go with you if you will take me.”

She nodded and stepped away from him as she transformed from a woman into the commander again. “You and Garrus will be my ground team. Vega will man the shuttle and Kaidan will stay on it as backup since I’ve never seen you in actual battle.”

She boarded the shuttle with Garrus to her right and the drell—Thane—to her left. Kaidan sat across from them and looked curiously at Thane. “So you, ah, saved the commander?”

“I did,” the drell said simply.

“And how did you manage to take out a group of people she couldn’t?” Kaidan asked. It was a good question and Garrus turned to look at him as he answered.

“She was drugged and restrained,” he said. “She was also badly injured. Her condition when I found her was serious.”

Shepard smiled up at Thane and said, “He saved my life.”

“So…it wasn’t Cerberus?” Kaidan asked.

Shepard sighed and said, “Kaidan, it isn’t all about Cerberus.”

Kaidan held up his hands and said, “Sorry. They just seemed like the most likely candidates after the batarians.”

“Commander,” Vega called out and she rose and went to the cockpit.

“Thank you,” Garrus said to Thane. Regardless of whether he liked the man or not, he’d still saved his bondmate. 

The drell gave him an enigmatic smile and said, “Oh, you are very welcome, Officer Vakarian.”

Garrus suppressed a shudder and wondered what Shepard saw in the guy. So he’d saved her. Was that really enough? Or had the bond been formed when the drell was taking care of her? Why did he act like he owned her? And why had they started anything in the first place if Shepard loved Garrus? And what had he called her? Siha? Was that a nickname? It had sounded like an order. Shepard didn’t take orders from just anybody. Hell, she didn’t take orders from her superiors unless she agreed with them. She’d told the Illusive Man to fuck off more than once and she’d told Hackett off on more than one occasion. So why did she act like this drell had control over her?

He watched the two of them as they jumped off of the shuttle and began to move toward the facility. It was Thane who noticed the dead Alliance soldier. “He was executed,” the drell stated after only a glance. They heard gunfire in the distance and ran to cover. Shepard drew her beloved Widow and sighted down the scope. On either side of her, Garrus did the same with his Mantis and Thane with the Viper he carried. Cerberus troopers had soldiers lined up on their knees and were executing them as well. Shepard growled and nodded slightly. 

Three shots rang out as one and three troopers dropped, two with clean headshots and one with no head at all. Okay, so the drell was a good sniper. He wasn’t as good as Garrus. No one was as good as Garrus but Shepard herself. Garrus picked his next target and took him down as Thane and Shepard did the same. Within moments, the field in front of them was clear. Shepard replaced Eleanor on her back and drew her shotgun. Thane traded his rifle for an SMG and Garrus drew his assault rifle. The three of them advanced and cleared the field outside the facility. When they reached the lift, Garrus said, “Shepard, there aren’t nearly enough of them to take a place like this.”

“They must have had help from the inside,” Thane commented.

“Yes,” Shepard agreed. “But who and why? What could Cerberus want with this place?”

The lift delivered them into the garage and they ran forward as they heard the twang of flexing metal. “The vents,” Thane whispered and Shepard nodded.

The three of them waited and Garrus saw the vent cover drop to the floor followed by a familiar asari. She was being chased by two Cerberus soldiers and she dispatched them quickly and coldly. Thane moved forward with his gun drawn but Shepard placed a hand on his arm and said, “Easy, Sere. She’s with us. That’s Liara.”

Garrus and Shepard moved forward to greet her with Thane behind. Garrus said, “Told you I’d pick you up.”

“I appreciate the lift,” Liara said, “but first, there is something we must retrieve.” She looked at Thane. “Who is this?”

“Thane Krios,” Shepard said and explained about her capture and rescue. 

Liara’s eyes narrowed. “The assassin?” she asked when Shepard finished.

Thane clasped his hands behind his back and nodded once. Garrus looked to Shepard. “Why didn’t you mention that?”

“It wasn’t relevant,” she said. “He knows how to fight. He’ll be good for the team.”

“What were you doing when you found her?” Garrus asked Thane.

“Executing a contract,” he answered. “Nassana Dantius. Shepard was being held in the tower.”

“Isn’t that the asari who…” Garrus said.

“Tricked me into killing her sister?” Shepard asked. “Yes.”

“Ah,” Thane said. “That explains why I was hired.”

“This is all very fascinating,” Liara said, “but we need to get moving before the storm gets here.” Shepard turned her attention to the asari and Liara explained to her about the blueprints for the device she’d discovered. 

A moment later, Cerberus began working to unseal the door and the four of them got into cover. Garrus wasn’t used to working with a team of four and he thought Thane would be redundant but when Liara cast a singularity at the troopers, the drell warped it and the resulting biotic explosion took out the entire group without a shot needing to be fired. Shepard nodded and gestured for them to move. 

They followed her through the facility. Liara gave directions as needed and there proved to be enough enemies for all four of them. By the time they reached the Prothean beacon, Garrus had gained a healthy respect for the assassin’s abilities if not his personality. The drell could _move_. Humans had a saying about certain people being jacks of all trades but masters of none. Thane seemed to be a master of all of them as long as it involved killing. No matter the range, no matter the number of enemies he chose to take on, no matter the method, they fell to him like penitents before the god of death. 

“Think all three of us could take him?” Shepard whispered at one point while they were crouched behind a crate with their sniper rifles and Thane was flowing through the troops like water. 

“No,” Garrus answered. “Well, maybe. If Liara could get him in stasis. She’d have to catch him off guard, though, and I have a feeling that’s easier said than done.”

“It is,” she said with a certainty to her voice that caught his attention. 

“Shepard,” he whispered after taking a shot, “are you…afraid of him?”

“No!” she whispered loudly. “Of course not. I just…didn’t realize he was that good. I’m impressed. Really.” 

“Uh huh.” Garrus wasn’t convinced and he decided to keep an even closer eye on the drell.


	12. Chapter 12

A short time later, the four of them were chasing hard after the woman who’d been Cerberus’ inside help. She moved faster than any human Garrus had ever seen and even he and Thane had trouble keeping up with her. She had to be augmented somehow. She reached the shuttle before they caught her and Vega flew in and rammed it. The two shuttles went down and Kaidan jumped out with his gun drawn on the burning wreckage of the Cerberus vehicle. “What the hell happened?” he asked. 

“She has the data!” Shepard shouted. 

Kaidan moved forward as the door flew off of the shuttle and a mech appeared in the doorway. Before the biotic could react, the mech had her hand on his faceplate like a human bowling ball and was holding him in the air. “Orders?” it asked. It waited for a moment and then turned and slammed Kaidan into the side of the shuttle. Shepard shouted and Garrus tried to find an angle to shoot the mech before it killed Kaidan. A shot rang out and the mech dropped with Alenko beside it. He looked over to see the drell collapsing his Viper and Shepard running for Kaidan. 

Joker flew in with the ship and Shepard threw Alenko over her shoulders like a sack of grain and carried him onto the ship. She deposited him on a table and stood over him, staring at his face through the helmet. “Shepard,” Liara said urgently. “Kaidan needs medical attention. We have to leave the Sol System.”

“I know,” she said. Joker came over the comm and told her that Admiral Hackett was available. She waved a hand in their direction and said, “See what you can do for him,” and then left.

Thane joined Liara by the table and scanned Kaidan before saying, “I am afraid he is beyond my abilities. There is significant damage to his brain and to the implant he wears. A hospital is his only hope.” Despite his words, he injected the biotic with medigel and Liara braced Kaidan’s head. Garrus felt helpless. 

Liara left to check on Shepard and give Hackett the information about the device and Garrus and Thane stared at each other. Finally, Garrus said, “You know she’s my bondmate.”

“I do,” the drell said.

“And?” Garrus asked.

“I do not care,” he answered. “She may be your bondmate and, as I told her, she is welcome to have you but she is _mine_.”

“She isn’t a toy or a possession for you to own,” Garrus growled. 

The drell gave him that enigmatic smile again and said, “Yes, I’m afraid she is.”

Garrus’ fringe grew tight and his mandibles splayed in shock. “It was you,” he charged. “There was no Eclipse plot. It was you. You’re fast enough and quiet enough to get around her. You’re strong enough and fast enough to get her out. You’re smart enough and have been trained to disappear. An asari mercenary couldn’t have bypassed the security and gotten into Alliance HQ. You could have. Why is she still with you? Why hasn’t she killed you?”

Thane tipped his head in acknowledgement and said in a mocking tone, “Because she ‘loves’ me and because she cannot kill me.”

“I can,” Garrus growled. “Or die trying.”

“She will kill you herself if you do,” Thane said certainly. “She will not even realize she is doing it. And when she comes back around to find her lovers dead, one by her hand, what do you think that will do to her? Would it destroy her to kill you?”

“Shepard would never hurt me,” he said.

“She would,” the drell said in a hard tone. “I have primed her to do it. She will kill anyone who causes me harm. She will do it without mercy and without regret. You want her? You may share her by my generosity but she will never belong to you.”

“What did you do to her, you sick son of a bitch?” Garrus snarled.

“I wanted her,” Thane answered, “so I took her. I made her mine. She resisted for a time but human minds are easily manipulated if one knows how to do it. Is it so horrible? She remembers none of the pain or fear. She believes that she loves me and I her. She is happy with me.”

 _She is terrified of you,_ Garrus thought. He would kill the drell right now or die in the attempt if he didn’t know the assassin was right. It would destroy Shepard if she harmed him. And if he died trying, she would be left completely unprotected. No one else knew her the way he did. No one else saw the fear. He had a feeling that Thane would not bring anyone else in on his twisted little secret and, if he was telling the truth, Shepard herself didn’t know it, at least not consciously. Until he knew more, he would have to bide his time and do his best to protect her.


	13. Chapter 13

Palaven was a nightmare. He’d thought Earth was bad and it wasn’t his homeworld. Seeing Palaven burning was almost too much for him to bear. Shepard looked at the feed as they flew in and then turned and offered her forehead to him. For once, Thane remained quiet. Garrus met her with his own and whispered, “Spirits. I don’t think I did enough. I don’t think anything would have been enough.”

“We are going to beat them,” she said. “We are going to save Palaven and Earth. I know it’s hard but you have to be strong. Believe in me, sweetheart.”

“I do,” he said. “I’m all right. I just wasn’t expecting…this.” He sat back and looked at the feed again. “Dad and Solana are down there.”

“I’m…sure they’re all right,” she said hesitantly. He gave her a doubtful look and she sighed and ran her hand over his damaged mandible. He closed his eyes and leaned in to the touch for a moment before standing and drawing his rifle. 

___

Thane walked into Shepard’s cabin after the AI allowed him entry and stopped in front of the fish tank with his hands clasped behind his back. It had irritated him to find the red lock barring his entry but he was gratified that she had allowed him in immediately. He supposed that keeping her door locked was a wise deterrent to constant crew interruptions but he would ensure that she gave him access. She had been pulled in one direction or another since they had arrived on Earth, beating the Reapers by mere minutes and he had barely seen her outside of combat. 

“Hello, Sere,” she said. “I was just about to go down and speak with Garrus.”

He looked over his shoulder at her and said, “Can it wait? I wished to discuss some ground rules with you.”

“Yes, Sere,” she said, propping a hip against her desk and crossing her arms over her chest. 

“You are to inform me if you intend to be alone with him,” he said. “You are to be accessible to me at all times when you are not performing your duties as commander and, therefore, you will give me the courtesy of choosing whether or not I need you first.”

“Speaking privately with my crew is part of my duties as commander, Sere,” she stated. “I have to be able to judge their moods and capabilities on any given day and they need to see me as someone they can come to when they have a problem.”

“I understand that, Siha,” he said. “If you are speaking with him as commander to crew, you may make an exception. However, if you are speaking with him as a lover, you will grant me first right of refusal.”

“Yes, Sere,” she said. “I do need to speak with him, both as his commanding officer and as his lover. Palaven was a harsh blow. He’s hurting and that hurts me.”

“Why?” he asked. “Palaven is not your homeworld. Why should his pain cause yours?”

“Because I love him,” she said as if it should be obvious which, to her, it was.

“And that means you must take his pain onto yourself?” he asked, turning to face her.

“It means I do, whether I must or not,” she answered. “Does it not hurt you to see me in pain?”

Truth or lie? He decided on a truth if not the absolute truth. He did, after all, wish to keep her in the dark about his true role in her life and for that, she had to believe that he reciprocated her emotions. “It had never occurred to me that it should,” he stated after a moment. “I…dislike it when some outside force causes you pain. I am afraid that I do not have much experience when it comes to emotions such as love.”

“You’ll learn, Sere,” she said with a smile and came to him. She wrapped her arms around him and looked up into his eyes. “I can teach you.”

He slid his arms around her waist and said, “If anyone could, it would be you, Siha.” Unfortunately for her, that would not happen but the statement was true in and of itself. He was certain that his capacity to love had been taken from him when he was six and his parents had turned him over to the hanar’s untender mercies. 

She rose onto tiptoe and said, “May I go to Garrus?”

He sighed. “I suppose. I had hoped to have you to myself tonight.”

“You have had me to yourself for three months, Sere,” she said with a flirtatious smile. “Is one night without me so much to bear?”

“Yes,” he answered and lowered his head to claim her mouth with his own. 

She gripped his back and returned the kiss with ardor before drawing breathlessly away. “If that’s what I get after only a day, imagine what it will be like tomorrow. Perhaps I should request a few days to let the anticipation build.”

He fisted his hand in her hair and nipped the side of her neck. “Insubordinate,” he charged.

“Teasing,” she said. “I miss you. If not for what we saw today, I would beg you to take me right now.”

He hummed consideringly and said, “Or you could beg me to take you right now and go speak with Garrus later.” He didn’t like the idea of the turian having her in her bed before Thane had made it, too, his. He reminded himself that the turian had already been there and that one more time before things changed would not harm anything. Let them feel comfortable together. Vakarian knew where they stood and what was at stake now. 

She danced away and said, “As appealing as that idea is…” her eyes roved over his body, “…I’m afraid his need is a bit more pressing at the moment than my desires.”

“His need, your desires, hmm?” he asked.

“He is mine, correct?” she asked. “That means I have a responsibility to take care of him just like you would have a responsibility to take care of me if the situation was different.”

“I do?” he asked in an amused tone. Playful, loving Shepard pushed her boundaries but she did it so sweetly that he could not bring himself to correct her harshly. He admired her creativity in gaining concessions for herself. 

“Of course,” she said. “I’m yours, right?”

“Indeed,” he said with a smile. Perhaps he would instruct her to get a tattoo, a permanent mark on her body declaring her as such. “All right,” he conceded. “Go take care of your turian. Tomorrow, however, you are mine.”

“Tomorrow is a travel day,” she informed him with a smile. “I’ll still have work to do to prepare for the diplomats and I need to confer with Primarch Victus but I’ll have a good deal more free time than I otherwise would.”

“Good,” he said. “I will see you tomorrow, then.” As he walked out of her cabin, he realized that was the first time he had put someone else’s wishes ahead of his own.


	14. Chapter 14

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Consensual NSFW

“Shepard, Garrus is requesting entry,” EDI said.

“Let him in,” she responded. 

The door opened and Garrus walked in, dressed in civvies as he had been the night before the Omega 4 relay. He was more confident now, both in his welcome and in her, and he strode in as if it was their cabin rather than hers. It had been for a time. Now, she wasn’t so sure. She went to him and he immediately pulled her into his arms and dropped his forehead to hers. She felt the shudder that ran through his body and reached up to clasp the back of his neck with her hand and hold him in place as she herself began to tremble. She had missed him incredibly. 

“Garrus,” she sighed.

“Shepard,” he breathed in kind. “Spirits, I’ve needed you.”

“I’m here,” she said. 

He slid his hand into her hair and tilted her head back. His stiff lips met hers and his long, rough tongue slipped into her mouth to stroke her own. It had taken them time to learn how to do this, to figure out how to mesh hard planes and sharp angles with soft flesh and gentle curves, but they’d done it. Kissing him now felt like coming home. His arm slid beneath her ass and he lifted her up. She hooked her thighs over his protruding hips and used them for leverage as he carried her across the room in a series of long, quick strides. He was gentle as he lowered her to the bed and brought his hand up to frame her face. 

This was signature Garrus: patient, thorough, attentive. Without breaking the kiss, she reached up and removed his visor. She placed it on the nightstand beside the bed and only then did she pull back. She wanted to see both of his brilliant blue eyes. He only ever took it off to do maintenance on it or for her. If she let him, he slept in the thing. She imagined she was probably one of the only people in the galaxy who would recognize him without it. He allowed her to strip off his gloves and he ran his bare fingers through her hair. 

Her hair fascinated him. He could spend hours sifting through it and watching the play of light on the strands. He told her once that her hair was the first thing that made him realize that he desired her. He’d wanted to touch it from the first time he saw it. That wasn’t what she wanted now, though. She needed to come together with him, to reaffirm their bond, so she began to unfasten the toggles on his tunic. He worked the buttons on her uniform shirt, his eyes drinking in every inch of skin that was revealed to him. 

She did the same with him, savoring the sight of his hard plates, the paler skin between, the smooth hide over his abdomen. Her hands traveled over his waist and he hissed in a breath before gliding his hot palms over her skin. She loved that about him. He was so warm. He radiated heat into her and she felt like she was surrounded by him. His head came down and his tongue dragged along the side of her neck as his hands cupped her breasts and his thumbs brushed over her nipples. She sighed contentedly and he nipped her shoulder, his sharp teeth scraping across her soft skin without breaking it. She wanted him to break through. He hadn’t marked her before and she regretted that. 

He shrugged out of his tunic and drew her shirt down over her arms and tossed it aside. His lips closed around her nipple and his tongue wrapped around it. His hand passed over her side as she arched into him and slid under her back to dance his talons along her spine. She loved how careful he was with her. He could flay her in an instant with his sharp talons but he broke skin only when she asked for it or when he could see that she wanted it. His control wasn’t as ironclad as Thane’s but it was still strong and she loved watching him come undone. 

He kissed her shoulder as he unbuttoned her cargo pants and hooked his fingers into the waistband. His hands shook slightly as he drew them down her legs and she stroked his face and neck and the underside of his fringe. The last made him throw his head back into her hands, begging silently for more contact. She was happy to give it and scraped her nails lightly along the suede-like hide she found there. He rolled his hips, sliding his exposed erection against her center and she whispered, “You’re overdressed.”

“Observant as usual,” he said with a grin and moved to the side of the bed to work his pants down his legs and over his spurs. She took in the sight of him with open appreciation. Thane was objectively handsome. Garrus was beautiful in an alien, predatory way. She loved Garrus’ sharp angles and hidden softness and thought his body was an outward testament to his mind and spirit. He was, quite simply, the most beautiful person she knew.

“Come here, big guy,” she said. “I’ve missed you.”

“You have no idea,” he said, moving back onto the bed and climbing over her, “how much I have missed you.” He kissed her lips before trailing his mouth down her body. He took his time, kissing and nipping and licking her, relearning her body after their separation. He had forgotten nothing about her and he located every point that drew even the slightest reaction from her with the unerring accuracy of the excellent sniper he was.

He pushed her thighs apart with his hands and she opened willingly for him. The first slide of his rough tongue over her center had her bowing off of the bed until her shoulders and heels were the only points of contact. “Garrus!” she called out. 

“I’m right here, Shepard,” he said, his voice sending delicious vibrations through her core. He circled her clit with his tongue before sliding it down to her entrance and licking it teasingly. She reached out and threaded her fingers between the spines of his fringe and his tongue darted into her. 

“Oh, fuck,” she moaned. She’d forgotten just how good that felt. He pushed his tongue deeper, filling her before pulling it out and repeating the motion. His thumb circled her clit, getting close but not quite where she needed it to be. Less than a minute with his mouth on her and she was already panting helplessly, her breathless cries echoing off the bulkhead. He took mercy on her and brushed his thumb over her clit as he thrust his tongue into her. Her body locked down on him as she cried out his name and fell apart around him.

He moved up her body, taking time once more to lick and kiss her skin, savoring her trembling in the aftermath of her orgasm, before bracing his elbows on either side of her head and burying his hands in her hair. When he kissed her, she tasted herself on him and wrapped her legs around his waist, massaging it with her thighs. He groaned into her mouth and she felt him nudge her entrance. “Please,” she whispered. “I want you inside me.” Without subvocals, she couldn’t give him instinctive consent and the first time they came together after any separation, she had to tell him. It was assumed after that unless she said otherwise or they were parted again but it gave a sense of being the first time all over again when she had to tell him. 

“Spirits, I’ve been waiting to hear that for months,” he said against her lips as he rolled his hips and pressed into her. He was big, thicker than Thane, and his ridges swirled around his cock like the whorls on Tali’s hood where Thane’s were progressive rings. Her body stretched to accommodate him and she moaned as he seated himself fully into her. She could feel the rumble of his subvocals as she kissed his throat, his collar, his shoulders, everywhere she could reach. She nipped at his damaged mandible—he was right; she did like his scars—and stroked her fingers along the underside of his fringe and the ridge of plates over his spine. 

His hot mouth trailed over her throat and the hollow of her collarbone before nipping at her shoulder again. She tilted her head to give him better access as he thrust shallowly into her and she raked her nails over the back of his neck. He rolled his hips again, taking him deeper, and she bowed up to meet him. His thrusts became harder and more urgent and he whispered into her ear, “I want to fuck you until you forget everything but my name, Shepard.”

“Oh, gods, yes,” she said.

“It’s Garrus,” he teased, “but god works, too.”

She chuckled and kissed his neck as he drew his knees forward and angled her hips to allow him to plunge deeper into her. She braced her feet on his spurs and rocked up into him, drawing him into her body on every one of his hard strokes. “Garrus,” she panted as his teeth scraped over her shoulder again, “Garrus, please.”

He growled and his arm tightened around her waist. “I don’t want to hurt you,” he said.

“I don’t care,” she said. “I can handle it. Please, Garrus.”

“Fuck, Shepard,” he groaned. “You know I can’t tell you no.”

Her arms tightened around him as his teeth closed over her shoulder. He slipped a hand between them and ran his thumb around and then over her clit. She moaned loudly and he bit down, his sharp teeth piercing cleanly through her skin. His hot tongue bathed the skin around them and he snarled before pounding hard into her. She had never seen him completely lose control before but he was close now. His talons dug into the skin on her hip and his fist in her hair held her head immobile. His teeth sank deeper into her skin as he hammered into her body. His name was a litany on her lips, the last certain thing for her in a rapidly shifting galaxy. She tightened around him again and he strengthened his grip on her as he thrust deep and held himself there with his plates against her flesh and his cock pulsing inside of her.

He collapsed onto his forearms and removed his teeth from her. “Are you sure, Shepard?” he asked. “If it works for us like it would with a turian, my saliva will seal the mark and medigel won’t remove it.” 

“I’m sure,” she said. “I love you, Garrus. I don’t care if the whole damn galaxy knows it.”

He licked the wound he’d created and cleaned the blood from her skin with his tongue. The action was so primal that she almost instinctively rolled him over onto his back and locked her teeth over his shoulder. It was his turn to beg. “Spirits, Shepard, please. Mark me.”

“It’s going to hurt,” she warned. “My teeth aren’t designed for this.”

“I don’t care,” he said, echoing her words. “I can handle it. I need this, Shepard. I need you.” She stroked his fringe and his waist and flexed her internal muscles as her jaw clamped down, driving her blunt teeth into his thick hide. It was more tearing than piercing and she was afraid she was hurting him but when she stopped, his hand closed over the back of her head and held her in place. “Don’t stop,” he urged. She continued and finally felt his flesh give under her teeth. Metallic blue blood filled her mouth and she licked him clean as he had her. She didn’t know if it would mark like his would but she thought it might, given how much force had been required to break his skin. He didn’t seem to care, though, because he kissed her hard before turning onto his side with her in his arms and nuzzling her shoulder. 

She moved closer to him, conforming her body to his, and felt his heat surround her again. She didn’t mind the roughness of his plates or the sharp angle of his keel and collar. She tucked her head into his neck and breathed deeply, savoring the metallic scent of his hide. She had missed him more than even she had known and she wished that they could stay in this moment forever. His fingers threading through her hair and, feeling safe for the first time in months, she drifted to sleep in his arms.


	15. Chapter 15

When the AI informed him that Shepard was free of her duties the following day, Thane made his way up to her cabin. She was waiting for him inside, leaning up against her fish tank with her arms over her chest in what he was coming to think of as her Commander Shepard pose. She certainly hadn’t utilized that posture when they were on Illium but he supposed that she couldn’t quite separate commander from slave when on board her own ship. She may have thought of him as her master but she certainly didn’t think of herself as a slave anyway. She was too confident for that. 

“How is your turian?” he asked because she seemed to expect it.

“Better,” she answered. “Thank you, Sere.”

He nodded and drew her into his arms, grateful to find that she had showered, washing the other man’s scent from her body. It was polite of her and he decided to reward her consideration. His fingers found the buttons on her shirt as his mouth found hers. Her arms circled his neck and she pressed against him as fully as she could with his hands working on her clothing. He trailed his lips over her jaw and the side of her throat, feeling her pulse pounding beneath her skin. She reacted to him so quickly now. A part of him missed the struggle, the resistance, the fight, but another part of him reveled in her acceptance when he knew it was gained by force and she did not.

“How was your meeting with the Primarch?” he asked. He was learning that he enjoyed hearing about her day. She was a powerful woman with powerful allies and that made her submission to him all the more empowering. If the most powerful people in the galaxy bent to her will and she bowed before him, what did that make him? He had no desire to bring her down. He was elevated by her. 

“Unproductive,” she answered. “Until the summit, we can only conjecture and grieve together over our losses. It’s nice to have someone else who understands my position but he’s so focused on what he’s losing that he can’t appreciate his gains yet. That will come when the power actually means something. Right now, it’s just responsibility and the feeling that he’s failing his people.”

“And do you feel like you are failing your people?” he asked before running his tongue along her throat again. This was something he did love, the taste of her, the sound of her soft sigh before she formulated her answer.

“I would rather be fighting on Earth,” she finally said. “I feel like I abandoned them when they need me most.”

“It will come, Siha,” he said, reassuring her because he didn’t want her distracted from him and he had already seen how absorbed she became when she contemplated the fate of Earth.

“I hope so,” she said and ran her hands along his frill as he slid his beneath her open shirt. He slid it down her arms and ran his hands down her back. She was so strong. It always amazed him how strong she was. She seemed so small when he was just looking at her.

His teeth scraped over her bare shoulder and he stilled. Rage filled him at the sight of the circle of neat pinpoint scars on her previously unmarred skin. She sensed the change in his mood and froze. He closed his eyes and focused on taming the fury inside of him even as he felt his biotics flicker over his skin. He wanted to snap her neck. He had given something up for her and she had repaid him with betrayal by allowing another to mark her. He wanted to murder the turian and that was something he could do without regretting later. 

“I will kill him for this,” he said.

“Please don’t,” she whispered urgently. “It was my fault, Sere. I got carried away. I pushed him into it. He didn’t know. Please don’t hurt him.”

She wanted the full force of his fury unleashed on her? So be it. His eyes snapped open and he fed on the fear he saw in hers. His hand fisted harshly in her hair, snapping strands within his grip and pulling her scalp taut over the bone. He shoved her to her knees and snarled, “I give you one night without me, _one night_ , Siha, and this is what you do? Mark him all you wish but _you_ are _mine_. Do you need me to remind you of that fact?”

“No, Sere,” she said. She was terrified. He could see it in her face but her voice was steady and calm. “I’m sorry, Sere.”

“Words mean nothing,” he said. “It is your actions by which you are judged. You have fallen far short of my expectations. How often must I clarify to you that you _belong_ to me? I _own_ you, Siha, just as surely as you own this ship. You are a possession and a possession has no value without ownership. You have devalued yourself by allowing yourself to be marred by another, by allowing him to claim what is rightfully mine. You allowed him to steal from me and I will take something that is his in return.”

“Please don’t hurt him,” she whispered again. 

He smiled cruelly and said, “Love makes one take the pain from another onto oneself, correct? Well, I will allow him to feel _your_ pain. What shall it be, Siha? The moment you realized that you loved him? The first night you shared together? Last night? Which memory will I take from you that belongs to him? Which one holds the most value?” His mouth crashed down onto hers and here was the moment of resistance where her teeth clamped shut. “Open for me, Siha. Give it to me or I will take what he owes me in his flesh. It is your choice: your memory or a piece of him. I have been taught that the fringe is one of the most sensitive parts of their body. Shall I take one of his?”

“No, Sere,” she answered. 

“Then give me what I want,” he ordered. This time, when he demanded it of her, she opened to him. He released more venom into his saliva than he had used before but did not hesitate to deposit it into her mouth. He could take her memory altogether or he could corrupt it, twist it, make it something horrible. The latter would cause more pain but the former was more fitting. He chose to take it altogether. Let her and Vakarian through her feel the sense of loss, let them know what it was like to have something that was theirs stolen from them. 

“What do you see, Siha?” he asked when he drew back. 

“The _Normandy_ ,” she answered reluctantly. “The first one. Garrus is working on the Mako. He’s beneath it and I can just see his legs sticking out from underneath. He hears the elevator door and pulls himself out from under the vehicle. He leans onto an elbow and smiles at me and my heart flips in my chest. I have to swallow before I can speak. ‘You have grease on your face,’ I tell him. He shrugs a shoulder and grins wider. ‘Well, if you didn’t drive this thing like you stole it, I might not spend all of my time fixing it between missions.’ His tone is light, teasing. He loves to complain about it but he trusts me to get them to our destinations safely. He’s the only one who doesn’t get scared when I drive. I want to tell him that I’ll be more careful in the future because I can think of better uses for his time but Wrex and Ash are close by and Ashley would probably have a stroke. Instead, I go to him and crouch down. ‘How’s it going, big guy?’ I ask, more to hear his voice than for an actual answer. He knows far more about the Mako than I do. He answers and I reach out and wipe the dark smear from his forehead and cheek. He trails off mid-sentence. His eyes close and he nuzzles slightly against my hand. We both freeze and I realize that this isn’t just my friend. I love him.” Her voice was trembling by the time she finished. 

So that was her most precious memory. “Forget it,” he said. “That never happened. It was a figment of your imagination.”

“Yes, Sere,” she answered obediently. A tear shimmered on her lashes and dropped onto her cheek. He leaned forward and licked it, savoring the taste of her pain. She blinked and looked around the cabin. “What was I saying?”

“Nothing, Siha,” he said. 

She stood still as he finished undressing her and loosened his pants. She was unresisting when he lifted her up and slammed her into the fish tank. His jaw did not open far enough to cover the turian’s mark and he would not have his inside of it, so he jerked her head to the side and sunk his teeth into the opposite shoulder as he slammed roughly into her. She wasn’t prepared and her body resisted his intrusion. She made a choked sound which he ignored and he slammed into her again. He fucked her brutally and when he came the first time, he dragged her by the hair over to the bed and shoved her onto it on her knees. She screamed into the blanket as he shoved himself into her ass and he paused only long enough to determine that he hadn’t torn her open before hammering into her again. 

By the time he came again, she was breathless and limp and her body trembled from shock. He pulled out of her and snarled, “Don’t move,” before going into the head and cleaning himself only because he did not wish to make her actually sick. When he returned, he used her hair to lever her around and grasped her face by the jaw, using pressure to forcibly open her mouth before she had time to comply. This wasn’t about her compliance. This was about utilizing violence to remind her of what kindness had allowed her to forget. He thrust into her mouth, feeling her throat clench as he hit the back of it. Her full attention went to the effort not to gag on his cock and he watched in delight as her eyes water and moisture streamed down from her face, smearing her carefully-applied makeup. Saliva glistened at the corner of her mouth. She looked utterly debauched and _used_. “I am going to _ruin_ you, Shepard,” he vowed. 

He fucked her long into the night, taking her again and again in holes that went past sore into painful, ignoring her eventual pleas for him to stop and her cries for mercy. He stopped just short of breaking her but leaned forward and said against her ear with his cock firmly inside her ass, “I have not damaged you before, Siha, because I wished to keep you whole. Now, you are damaged goods and I have no incentive not to damage you further except what you give me through your behavior. Will you allow him to mark you again?”

“No, Sere,” she whimpered. 

He pulled back and slammed into her ass again. “Who do you belong to, Shepard?”

“You, Sere,” she answered.

“Good,” he said. “Do not make me remind you again. I am not a merciful man. You would do well to remember that fact. The next time, I will kill him and make you watch.”

“I understand, Sere,” she said.

He spilled himself inside of her again and pulled out. She collapsed on the bed, shaking. He collected his clothing and dressed. “Put some medigel in your ass, Siha,” he said coldly. “I wish to take it again later and do not want to have to deal with scar tissue.” He turned and stalked out of the room feeling finally fulfilled.

___

“Shepard,” a voice said. She ignored it. “Shepard,” it said again. “Commander Shepard.”

“What, EDI?” she groaned.

“Would you like me to summon Dr. Chakwas?” the AI asked and Shepard realized the voice was coming from beside her rather than the speakers in the room. She turned her head and saw EDI’s new mobile platform standing beside the bed with a packet of medigel in hand.

“No,” Shepard said, reaching for the medicine. 

EDI gave it to her and then said, “I have a question.”

“Not now, EDI,” Shepard muttered, pushing herself into a sitting position. Every part of her body hurt. 

EDI ignored her. “Why did you allow him to do that?”

“He’ll kill Garrus if I don’t,” she said. “And I can’t take him myself. You haven’t seen him fight.”

“Why would you sacrifice your own well-being for another?” EDI asked. “It is not relevant to the mission.”

“It isn’t all about the mission,” Shepard said. “When you love someone, you protect them.”

“Thane claims to love you and yet he not only failed to protect you, he caused you harm,” EDI pointed out.

“I know,” Shepard said. “I don’t want to talk about it.”

“But, Shepard, my research indicates that talking about a traumatic event—” she began.

Shepard cut her off. “I said, I don’t want to talk about it, EDI. Let it go. And do not tell Garrus or anyone else what happened here. If Garrus finds out, he’ll try to kill him. He’ll fail and then I will kill him.” She had figured that much out on her own. “You can’t tell anyone, EDI. Promise me.”

“I promise, Shepard. What can I do to help you?” EDI asked. “You are in a classically abusive relationship. Your feelings of love toward him are misguided.”

“There’s nothing classical about this situation, EDI,” she said. “And there’s nothing you can do right now but keep my secrets.” She tried to stand but her muscles were weak from hours spent locked into position when the pain had finally overridden her ability to remain relaxed and her body had begun fighting him. EDI was surprisingly gentle when she slid her synthetic arms beneath Shepard’s back and knees and lifted her off of the bed. “What are you doing?”

“Carrying you to the restroom,” EDI said. “My research suggests that you will want to shower though it states that is the worst thing you can do at this point. However, if you refuse to report this, then I do not see how avoiding it will help. You cannot walk on your own. I will help you. This platform is waterproof.”

Shepard gave in and let her head drop against EDI’s shoulder. “Thanks,” she whispered.


	16. Chapter 16

Shepard was avoiding him. She wasn’t overt about it. There was no ducking into corridors or turning when she saw him in the passageways. She simply was not available. Thane could have attributed it to the war summit but given what he had done to her, this had the feel of a deliberate choice. She remained in the war room with the Primarch and the krogan leader, coming out only to give instruction to the pilot or gather her team for their missions. She came down to the shuttle bay with time enough only to gear up and go. She briefed them on the shuttle and then either went to the cockpit to speak with the shuttle pilot or leaned against the bulkhead and folded her hands over her abdomen and closed her eyes. When the mission was complete, she debriefed them the same way, doffed her gear, and vanished back into the war room. 

He supposed that she went to her cabin to shower and change but unless he chose to hover by the lift on the bridge or outside of her cabin, she could do so without his knowledge. She still had not cleared him for entry to her cabin as the AI informed him when he attempted entry. He could get in by other means should he choose but she was spooked enough already. So he waited in the quarters assigned to him and he watched her in the field and he felt her slipping away. She could not leave him. She belonged to him but she was still a sentient being and could choose to isolate herself from him. There was enough for her to do on the ship that she could excuse her absences as duty and he could say nothing. 

He finally found her when she went to the med bay to speak with the krogan female. He waited by the lift and said, “Siha, I would like to speak with you.”

“Can it wait, Sere?” she asked. “I’m very busy and I need to speak with Engineer Adams. There’s a part he needs me to get when we’re on the Citadel again.”

“EDI,” Thane said, “please remind the commander when we are finished to speak with the engineer.”

“Yes, Thane,” EDI said. 

He cocked a brow and she tried to lead him into the mess hall but he caught her by the elbow. He felt her tense and kept his tone soothing as he said, “Privately, Siha.”

She nodded and followed him into the lift. He did not wish to make her feel like a caged animal so he stood to the side with his hands clasped behind his back and ensured that she could see that his demeanor was calm. She looked everywhere but at him and when they arrived on her deck, she stopped in the office rather than going down to the bedroom. That would not save her if he intended to hurt her but harming her was not his goal now. He needed to rebuild her trust in him.

He regretted his actions from that night, not because he had hurt her—he had quite enjoyed making her suffer—but because he had lost control of himself and had undone months of work in a single night. When he reached for her to cup her cheek, she flinched. She was afraid of him now in a way she had not been even in the beginning. Then, her fear was tempered by anger and confidence in herself. Now, she had seen what he was capable of and she knew that she stood no chance of defeating him. In her mind, he had been her rescuer. He had been nothing but loving toward her and then he had turned on her in an instant and brutalized her in a way she would not have seen coming. She saw only leashed violence when she looked at him now.

“Relax, Siha,” he said, stroking a thumb over her cheek. “Your punishment is over. I will not harm you now.” She bit her bottom lip and took a hesitant step forward. “You know why I needed to discipline you, yes?”

“Yes, Sere,” she whispered. “I allowed another to mark your property. I devalued myself in your eyes.”

“Correct,” he said. “Will you do it again?”

“No, Sere,” she answered meekly.

“Then I will not be called upon to resort to those methods again,” he said, keeping his tone patient and instructing. “I attempted to teach you through kindness and words but lessons learned through pain are the most resilient. I would prefer to avoid that methodology as you are far too intelligent to necessitate it but if you cannot retain my lessons without it, then you leave me no choice.”

“I will remember, Sere,” she said. 

“Good girl,” he said. “I am going to take you again but I will bring you only pleasure. Go to the bedroom and remove your clothing.”

“Please don’t, Sere,” she whispered. “I’m still very sore.”

“I will be gentle,” he assured her firmly enough that she knew that this was non-negotiable. 

“Yes, Sere,” she whispered, ducking her head. 

She moved to the bedroom and mechanically stripped her clothing. He removed his own as he watched her and felt himself grow hard at the sight of her. He ignored the mark on her shoulder and focused instead on his own. It was more pronounced than the turian’s subtle pinpricks and that gave him enough satisfaction that he decided he would allow her to keep them. Let everyone see that he had greater ownership over her. Let the turian see that he had marked her more efficiently. 

She was yielding in his arms but only minimally responsive. She allowed and tolerated; she did not reciprocate. This was a new type of resistance, a resistance borne of the fear of turning him down but a complete lack of desire for the act. He enjoyed this and wanted to reiterate that he would take her whether she wanted it or not and so he withheld his venom and laid her back on the bed. She did not react when he dipped his fingers into her but to wince slightly. She was still minimally swollen and he wondered how pained her ass was if her sheath was this tender. She might have been avoiding his physical presence but she had been walking around with the reminder of him with every step she took and every time she sat. He understood now why she had spent most of the time on the shuttle standing up. 

He nuzzled her neck and attempted to draw moisture from her body but she was not responding. He moved down her body and parted her legs so that he could see her. She gasped slightly when he tasted her. He knew her body and he utilized every bit of that knowledge until she was at least moving her hips with him and gripping the sheets. He eased his fingers into her once more and found her lubricated enough but not wet as she generally became. It seemed that he had caused more damage than he realized. Sex had always been the way he’d reached her and now he had created negative associations with it. If he could not undo that, he would have to take the memory of her punishment from her but he wished for her to keep it. She needed to know what happened when she crossed him. 

Love was another way into her heart and she associated kindness and tenderness with that foreign emotion. He drew his hands up her thighs, keeping his touch soft, as he licked her with long, gentle strokes. If he could make her feel cherished, he could get the response that he wanted. “You are so lovely, Siha,” he murmured against her, letting her feel the vibrations of her voice. “So strong and soft at the same time. Such a beautiful dichotomy. I am sorry I hurt you.” He looked up and found her biting her bottom lip with her eyes squeezed closed. “I love you so much, Siha,” he lied. “Seeing another man’s mark on you drove me to extremes I would not otherwise consider. Have I ever hurt you before?”

“No, Sere,” she whispered. 

“Then relax and allow me to make it up to you,” he said. He felt her consciously work to obey. His words had eased some of her fears but not all. He could solve all of this with venom but he wanted to see how pliable she was without it; how much he could get away with. He returned his attention to her body, delving his tongue into her semi-slick folds, and was rewarded with a small moan. He repeated the action and felt her begin to respond but when he moved up her body, she tensed again. He collected her so that her back was to his front and pressed against her. “I will be gentle, Siha,” he whispered. “Trust me.”

She nodded without speaking and he worked himself into her tight, swollen sheath with shallow, easy thrusts. Her hand fisted in the sheet and she squeezed her eyes shut again. He saw a tear tremble on her lashes. “Does this hurt, my love?” he asked.

“No, Sere,” she answered. “It’s just…uncomfortable.”

“Will you accept discomfort to allow me to reinforce our bond, Siha?” he asked. 

“Yes, Sere,” she answered. 

“Good,” he said and fought the urge to slam himself into her to the hilt. Slow and easy, that was what she needed. Try as he might, though, he could not get the responses he wished from her. She remained tense and wary, seemingly expecting him to take her as he had done before. He decided to try one final thing before resorting to venom. “EDI, request Officer Vakarian’s presence in the commander’s cabin.”

Shepard tensed even further. “Sere?” she whispered.

He kissed her throat and said, “I can think of no better way to show you that I am not angry than to allow your other lover to join us. As long as he does not mark you, he may participate. Perhaps then you will see that I do not intend to harm you.”

“Officer Vakarian is on his way,” EDI said. 

“We should…prepare him, Sere,” she said hesitantly. “Turians can be…territorial. I don’t want a confrontation that can be avoided.”

“You are not his territory,” Thane pointed out. “He is aware of that, is he not?”

“Yes, Sere,” she whispered quickly. 

“Then there should be no issue,” he stated smugly. Let Vakarian walk in and see his lover in another man’s arms. Let him see her tight pink center stretched around his emerald cock. Thane would enjoy the struggle that it caused the other man. He wanted to see how far he could push the turian as well. How much would the sniper endure to avoid causing her further pain? This could only end well for Thane. Either the turian would deal with it and suffer at the knowledge that he was complicit in Shepard’s abuse or Garrus would attempt to kill him and Shepard herself would kill Garrus and Thane would be free of him. He had made an error in allowing her to keep the turian but it could be turned to his advantage. Let him come.


	17. Chapter 17

“Garrus,” EDI said as he boarded the lift to Shepard’s cabin. The elevator doors closed but it did not move.

“Yes, EDI?” he asked, feeling somewhat confused.

“I believe that Shepard wishes for me to warn you that Thane is with her,” the AI said. “He did not want me to tell you but I…think she was trying to give me a message. They are currently engaged in sexual activity and Thane intends for you to join. Shepard is afraid that you will react negatively and attempt to harm Thane. I would advise against that course of action. She believes that she will kill you if you do.”

“Thanks for the heads up, EDI,” he said and crossed his arms as he worked to control his emotions. What kind of sick game was the drell playing now? Was he trying to goad him into attacking? It seemed likely. The man was legitimately insane. He found the idea of Shepard being forced to kill Garrus amusing and didn’t care that it would break her. Garrus couldn’t allow that to happen. She would never forgive herself. She wouldn’t be able to live with it. For her sake, he had to play along. 

“I recognize that a synthetic threatening the life of an organic may cause some distress,” EDI said, “but when we find a way to do so without endangering Shepard, I wish to help you kill him.”

We. Such a simple word but Garrus felt some of the tension drain out of his body. He wasn’t alone in defending Shepard. He had EDI, too, and he would not underestimate the benefits of her alliance. “What has he done to her now?” he asked. 

“She has sworn me to secrecy,” EDI answered. “Suffice it to say, I do not think she is as unaware of what a…monster he is as she would have him believe. We must assist her in keeping that fantasy alive in his mind. When you arrive, you must look shocked and dismayed. You cannot act as if you have been prepared for what you will see.”

Garrus straightened. “Is he hurting her now?” he growled.

“No,” EDI said. “Not physically, at least. I do not think she is an entirely willing participant but she is playing along.”

“Get me up there,” he said. “I’ll see what I can do.”

The lift rose and Garrus worked to compose himself. He wanted to rip that drell limb from limb, wanted to slice him open with his talons and tear his throat out with his teeth. Those desires didn’t help Shepard, though, so he fought them. He took a steadying breath as he stepped off of the lift. The lock on the door flashed from red to green and it slid open. He forced himself into a nonchalant posture and walked in. “Shepard? You wanted to see—” He stopped. The drell was sitting against the headboard with Shepard in his lap. Her legs were hooked over his and spread open so that Garrus could clearly see the other man inside of her. Her head was against his shoulder and one of his hands was clasped loosely around her throat. The other was between her legs, stroking her. His mouth was on the side of her neck and his eyes flashed up to lock on Garrus’.

Thane raised his head and said, “Garrus, how nice of you to join us. Come. My Siha is experiencing some difficulty. I had hoped you would be willing to assist her.”

Garrus suppressed his growl as Shepard shot him a look that was clearly apologetic. Ignoring the drell behind her, he crawled onto the bed and took her face in his hands. He noted the new bite mark opposite his and the tension in her eyes. She had been punished for what he’d done. He leaned forward and rubbed her forehead with his. She couldn’t understand all of his subvocals but she knew him and they were able to speak without words. _Are you okay?_ She nuzzled back and the corner of her mouth twitched. _I’m all right. Sorry about this._ He kissed her. _It’s all right. I’m here._

Thane snorted in amusement at whatever part of the display he could read and Garrus resisted the urge to rip his throat out. “I think I know what she needs,” he said in a tight voice as intellect and instinct warred within him. Instinct said that he was watching his mate get raped and he needed to rescue her. Intellect said that there was nothing he could do but try to make it easier for her. They were both hostage to a madman and their own love for each other. The thought crossed his mind that he could save her in another way. He could just take all three of them out. If not for the war, she might even agree with him but he knew she would never do so until the Reapers were gone. She would martyr herself to save him and the rest of them as she always did. Spirits, he loved her. Spirits, he hated this.

He kissed his way down her body, stroking his hands over her skin and feeling the tension drain out of her. He could almost hear her thoughts. He was here now. Together, Shepard and Vakarian could endure anything. He nipped gently at her hipbone, careful not to leave any marks as he was certain that would set the drell off again, and then moved to her center. He avoided contact with the other man as he drew his tongue along her center. She gasped and arched, sending the drell deeper into her, and he looked up to make sure she was all right with this. Her head was thrown back and her mouth slightly open as her breasts heaved with her gasping breaths. The drell had his teeth on her shoulder over his own mark and was looking at Garrus with a smug expression. Garrus snarled silently at him before returning his attention to Shepard. The drell wanted this to be about his own ego. Garrus would make it about her. 

He circled her clit with his tongue and ran his hands over her legs and waist before circling her ribcage and moving up to cup her breasts. She moaned and strained against him. He could see her thighs working as she moved against him, the action causing her to ride the drell’s cock. He could hear small, needy sounds coming from her and see the flush of blood beneath her skin. He tweaked her nipples and ran his tongue along her, refusing to draw back in distaste when he inadvertently slid along the drell. Thane groaned and clamped his hands around Shepard’s hips, moving her on him. Garrus followed this new motion, caring only for ensuring her own pleasure. 

He felt her hand on his head and her fingers slip between the spines of his fringe to stroke beneath them. _Don’t, Shepard,_ he thought. _Don’t make this arouse me any more than you already do._ It felt wrong, somehow, to want her like this. It felt wrong to react to her. If he could keep his thoughts clinical, then he was just helping her through it. If he responded to it, then he was a part of it. He didn’t want that but her fingers on his fringe and the sounds of her gasping moans and the scent of her rising arousal all conspired together to have his plates shifting and he slid out with a groan of his own. She cried out and her body convulsed as she reached her peak and went over. 

“There we go,” Thane murmured against her ear. “Do you see, Siha? I am pleased that he helped you find your release.”

“Yes, Sere,” she answered breathlessly. 

Thane flipped her so that she was on her knees with the drell behind her and motioned for Garrus to take his place against the headboard. Warily, he did so because it meant that he was facing Shepard and could see if she was in pain. Thane said, “Now, don’t you think you should thank him for his assistance, Shepard?”

“Yes, Sere,” she answered without looking at Garrus. 

He saw color bloom in her cheeks as Thane asked, “And how do we express our gratitude?”

Thane shifted back without disconnecting from her and Shepard raised an eyebrow, asking permission as her hands went to the clasp on Garrus’ pants. His mandibles splayed as he realized Thane’s intention. The drell was going to make him a part of it whether he wanted to be or not and if Garrus refused, it was Shepard who would suffer. The assassin got a sick, sadistic pleasure out of using them against each other. Garrus had wondered why he’d allowed her to maintain her relationship with him. Now he knew. They were weapons turned on each other. Well, Garrus might not be able to disarm him but he would take some of the edge off of them. 

He ran his fingers through Shepard’s silky hair and said warmly, “Now, why didn’t I think of that?”

“I think he’s smarter than we are,” she whispered conspiratorially, giving him a grateful smile. Humor in dark situations had always been their go-to and for him to display it now made this just another mission to get through and reiterated that they were a team. Only this time, the enemy was behind her and the goal was not to kill him yet but to take away his power. They would turn his own game against him and if they were smart enough and careful enough, he wouldn’t even realize they’d done it.

“Well, get to it then, soldier,” he said with a grin, opening his trousers and spreading his legs. Shepard winked at him and mouthed, _Aye aye, sir,_ before taking him in her hand and running her tongue along the length of him. “Shepard,” he groaned when she took him into her mouth. He was too big for her unless he went down her throat and so she made up the difference with her hand, stroking in tandem with her mouth as her tongue swirled along his ridges and her other hand slid along the side of his waist. She knew exactly how to make him lose his mind and she made every effort to do so now, equally determined to make this easier on him. Behind her, the drell began to move and she matched the rhythm of her hand and mouth to his. 

Garrus gripped the back of her neck and heard himself purr as his subvocals frayed. He didn’t want to enjoy this. He didn’t want to enjoy her subjugation but she felt _so good_ around him. Thane gave him a sadistic, knowing smile and changed his angle, causing Shepard’s pace to falter as she moaned around Garrus’ cock. Helplessly, he thrust up into her mouth and her nails raked over his waist and hip spurs and his control broke when she looked up at him with lust-glazed eyes. She began to move between them, sinking down onto Garrus until his cock nudged the back of her throat before she pushed back into Thane, rolling her hips to take him deeper. Whatever her mind may have been telling her in that moment, her body had taken over and she was no longer enduring but enjoying. That made him feel freer to let go and he groaned deep in his chest.

“Did you know that Shepard was a wanton little slut, Vakarian?” Thane asked conversationally as he continued to thrust into her. “Oh, the things she has allowed me to do to her. Have you taken her ass yet? If you have not, you should try it. It is…exquisite.”

Garrus swallowed his disgust and panted, “I’m…too…big.”

“A pity,” Thane said. “Perhaps I should take her ass while you fuck her.” To his surprise, Shepard’s answering moan sounded like desire rather than revulsion. Thane chuckled. “Do you want that, Siha? Your turian in the front and me in the back, both of us filling you, fucking you until you can take no more?” Thane’s hand buried itself in her hair and tugged hard, pulling her mouth off of Garrus. “Answer me, Siha,” he ordered as he rolled his hips sharply.

“Yes,” she moaned, the word sounding as if it had been dragged out of her as she came harder than Garrus would have imagined. 

“Do it, then,” Thane instructed. “Straddle him, ride him as you ride me.”

Eagerly, Shepard stripped Garrus’ pants from his legs and climbed up his body, all but tearing his tunic from him as she went. He’d never seen her like this but the clear evidence of her avid desire for him was intoxicating. She clasped his waist with her thighs and kissed him hard before trailing lips and teeth along his mandible. He groaned and she reached his ear canal and whispered, “I’m sorry,” before sinking down onto him. 

He shouted her name and gripped her hips, slamming her down onto him once and then again. Spirits, he was so close. “Shepard, please,” he groaned. She bit the side of his neck and raked her nails along the back of it and he thrust up into her and held her there. “Please, Shepard,” he begged again. 

“Be still, Garrus,” Thane said, placing his hand on his shoulder as he moved into position behind her. “You may finish in her in a moment.” 

Garrus snarled at the man and jerked away. Shepard’s touch became soothing. “Easy there, big guy.” 

He wrapped his arms around her and she licked and kissed his throat but he felt her wince when Thane started to push inside of her. “You okay?” he asked softly.

“I’m afraid she is a little sore here,” Thane said. “I may have gotten a bit…enthusiastic with her last time. Isn’t that right, Siha?”

“Yes, Sere,” she answered in a choked voice. 

Her fingers tightened on Garrus’ neck but this was pain rather than pleasure. Garrus could feel the other man’s cock sliding against him through her wall and felt the effort that it was taking her to relax and allow the intrusion. He ran his hands soothingly over her back and nuzzled the side of her head. “Easy, sweetheart,” he whispered. “Relax. You’re all right. You can do this. I’m right here.”

“Help me, Garrus,” she whispered back. “Fuck, this hurts.”

He tilted her head back and kissed her gently as he brought a hand between their bodies and began to run his thumb over her clit as his fingers slid around his cock. She loved it when he touched the place where they were joined when he was inside of her and he felt her breath catch as her grip on him loosened slightly. He stroked her, working her body with his hands as his mouth comforted her in the only way he could. She relaxed and he felt Thane slide further into her. She held herself still as the drell pushed into her but her fingers began to knead the back of Garrus’ neck and she changed the tone of their kiss. Her nails traveled over his fringe, signifying that she was ready and desire surged in him once more.

He had been surprised to find that the three of them worked seamlessly in the field together despite Garrus’ hatred of Thane. He was even more surprised to find that effortless teamwork coming into play now. He didn’t want to think about what it meant that he could read the drell so easily or that Thane could read him. He just focused on being grateful for what it meant to Shepard and told himself that if it was all right for her to get enjoyment out of this then it wasn’t terrible that the sensation of the other man’s cock massaging him through her as they moved together was one of the most amazing things he’d felt in his life. 

“Oh, fuck,” Shepard moaned against his mouth. “Garrus, Thane, please. More. Ohh, gods, fuck me, please. Harder. Fuck me harder.”

“Spirits, Shepard,” Garrus groaned and thrust up into her, using his grip on her to slam her down onto his cock. She let out a sound somewhere between a scream and a moan as her head fell back, baring her throat to him. Instinct reared its head again and he closed his teeth over it, holding her in place as he pounded into her, accompanied by the drell who placed his own teeth on her shoulder and bit down as he slammed into her. Garrus smelled blood and felt his talons unsheathe on her hips.

“Ah, ah,” Thane said. “No marks.”

“Please, Sere,” Shepard cried out, bringing a hand up to clasp the back of the drell’s neck. “Please. They’ll close. They won’t scar. Please!”

Thane sighed. “Sensation only,” he stated.

“Garrus, please,” Shepard begged. “Use your talons.”

Garrus snarled against her throat and sank his talons into her hips as he drove into her. She screamed his name and her body locked around him. Thane bit down again and Garrus had to remove his teeth from her to prevent himself from doing the same. Thane’s hand came up to circle her throat and she gasped his name as she convulsed. Another thrust from the drell had him pulsing inside of her and feeling the other two come pushed Garrus over the precipitous edge he’d been riding. 

They collapsed back onto the bed and Thane withdrew from her before lifting her off of Garrus and turning her onto her side facing the drell. “Thank you,” Thane said, wrapping his arms around her. “You may go.”

“Please let him stay,” Shepard whispered, tracing the stripes on the drell’s muscular chest with her fingertips. “He’s so warm.”

“Are you cold, Siha?” Thane asked in a shockingly considerate tone. 

“Yes, Sere,” she answered. “Your body leaches my heat.”

“Ah,” Thane said with a slight smile. “One of the detriments to sleeping with a drell. We are designed to absorb it. Turians, on the other hand, are designed to radiate it. As you wish, Siha, but never say that I do not indulge you.”

“Thank you, Sere,” she said and tilted her head back to kiss him. 

Garrus turned to face her, feeling uncomfortable but grateful for any opportunity to have her in his arms and that he wouldn’t have to leave her alone with the assassin. His arm slid around her waist and her fingers entwined with his and squeezed. He waited until she and the drell were asleep before nuzzling the back of her head.

He woke a few hours later to the sound of Shepard’s moans. When he opened his eyes, he saw Thane over her with her legs wrapped around his waist and the nails of her free hand dragging down his back. The other hand remained tightly around Garrus’ and he gave a reassuring squeeze. Her head was back and her eyes were closed but she was very clearly enjoying herself. Garrus wondered how the drell managed to captivate her body so completely when she was so deeply afraid of him. The assassin was attractive enough, he supposed as he watched his muscles ripple as he moved. His voice, if one was able to get past the coldness in it, was somewhat appealing. Still, he could see nothing that would drive her to this mindless lust and he was determined to find out what weapon Thane was using against her now. They finished and fell back into sleep. Garrus tried to stay awake to watch over her but it dragged at him, too.

He woke again to Shepard’s ass pressed against him and her head tipped back into his cowl. Her hand was still locked in his and she moved it over her taut abdomen and between her legs. She was already wet and when she rocked her hips against him, he felt himself evert from his plates in a rush. She gasped when he slid his cock against her and his eyes narrowed as he saw Thane’s open. The drell said nothing but simply propped himself on an elbow with his hand beneath his head and watched. A part of Garrus wanted to stop. What he and Shepard had wasn’t meant for an audience but she was gliding against him and drawing him into her body. He couldn’t resist that hot slide any more than he could resist any other part of her. He tucked his face into the crook between her neck and shoulder and rolled his hips forward, seating himself inside of her.


	18. Chapter 18

Thane was satisfied with the turn of events. He was discovering that the benefit of a second partner for one who did not care about the emotional minutiae and found it nothing more than tedious could not be overstated. They had completed their mission on Tuchanka and the salarian scientist Shepard was so fond of was dead. Thane was able to allow Garrus to see to the comfort of his mate, something which freed Thane to simply take pleasure in her body. Now that her emotional needs were met elsewhere, Shepard didn’t seem to expect him to contribute to them. 

He decided that owning everything but her heart was satisfactory if it meant that he no longer had to fake emotions. He had made her love him once. He was confident that he could do so again should he so choose. He did not need or truly want her love, only her devotion. Her job was to worship and serve him, not to love him. Let Garrus keep what he himself did not want. He could take it from the turian if he changed his mind.

Before returning to the Citadel to meet with the salarian councilor, Shepard directed them to Eden Prime where Cerberus had discovered a Prothean artifact of some kind. She pulled him aside in the Life Support room and said, “Sere, I need Garrus and Liara for this one.” In her role as commander, she did not request but she did inform him respectfully. 

“You want to leave me behind?” he asked tersely.

“Yes, Sere,” she answered. “Liara has to come. She’s our Prothean expert. And I anticipate a fight from Cerberus. Garrus and Liara have fought them with me before. She’s never fought with you except on Mars and she doesn’t adjust as smoothly as Garrus does. He knows how to keep her focused. You don’t. This is the best squad configuration to give me the biggest chance of success.”

“All right,” he conceded. “But not again.”

“I can’t promise that, Thane,” she said, the commander coming fully to the fore. He found it interesting that he had found the boundary for what she would and would not allow in that capacity long before finding it in any other. She was putting him in his place, letting him know that there were lines that even he could not cross. “There may be times when I need people other than you. I can’t imagine many but if Tali came and needed us to fight geth, she and Garrus would be my team for the same reason. If Wrex had wanted to come with us to fight rachni, I would have taken Garrus because we have done it before. Reaper forces are relatively new threats. You have just as much experience fighting them as the rest. Cerberus, geth, rachni, things of that nature are best handled by the crewmen with the most experience. If I can fit you into that rotation to allow you to get that experience, I will. If not, I am not putting the mission or the lives of my people at unnecessary risk to feed your ego.”

Too far. She had gone too far. Had she left the last four words unsaid, he would have accepted her ruling. As it was, she had stepped outside of her own bounds. His hand flashed out and made contact with her face. Her head snapped to the side but when she brought it around, what he saw was not fear but loathing. Her eyes flashed and she advanced on him, driving a finger into his chest. “If you _ever_ lay a hand on me like that again, Thane Krios, I will make it my mission to destroy you. I will turn this entire ship and every one of her crew on you. Nothing, not even the Reapers, will be able to save you.”

“Does Vakarian mean so little to you, Siha?” he snarled advancing upon her. 

To his amazement, she held her ground. “On the contrary,” she said. “He means too much. You go too far. You are trying to goad him into attacking because that will be the ultimate end to your little game. He attacks you, I kill him, it destroys me, you have me broken and all to yourself just the way you want me. So if that means I have to kill you myself, I’ll do it.”

“You cannot kill me,” he informed her. “I welcome you to try. Even if you were physically capable of defeating me, I have planted triggers in your mind that will prevent you from striking the killing blow.” 

She sneered even as dismay bloomed on her face. “I’ve been letting you play your little game to keep him safe and because you twisted me into loving you as much as I hate you but you’re losing it, Krios.” 

“I own you, Shepard,” he growled.

“Oh? You can’t control yourself so what the hell makes you think you can control me?” she asked. “Pull yourself together or get the fuck off my ship.”

He grabbed her by the back of the head and pulled her onto her tiptoes. Leaning close, he said, “You do not make the rules here, Siha.”

“Yes,” she said. “I do. This is _my_ ship and I am Commander fucking Shepard. I am the first human Spectre and the savior of the Citadel. I took this ship through the Omega 4 relay and destroyed the Collectors. I cured the genophage and killed a Reaper with a thresher maw. My enemies darken the skies and threaten the galaxy. You are just a sad, sick, twisted little boy with a magnifying glass pretending to be a god.” She lowered her voice and said, “Oh, and Thane? I remember _everything_. You are a dead man walking, so watch out. Now get your hands off of me before I slice them off with my omni-blade.”

“If I cannot have you, I will kill you and everyone else on your ship,” he vowed.

“Good luck,” she spat. “Now, let. Me. Go. I have a war to fight and, frankly, you’re below my pay grade.”

“We will discuss this when you return,” he snarled and threw her back from him. 

She caught herself and straightened. When she reached the doorway, she said, “EDI, lock the door. If Sere Krios leaves this room, he is to be shot on sight. Activate the lasers on the vents and the kinetic barrier on the window.” She turned to face him. “Welcome to your new prison, Thane.” The door closed, cutting off his response.

___

Shepard slumped against the wall of the elevator and tried to calm her racing heart. “EDI,” she said.

“Yes, Shepard?” the AI answered.

“Threat level one. All hands,” she ordered. “Make sure he does not get out of that room but if he does, you ensure that everyone on this ship is aware that he is deadly. No one is to be alone. Do not engage him. Go on lockdown and contain him if you can. Make no mistake, he _can_ kill everyone on this ship. Protect Joker at all costs. He cannot be allowed to take the _Normandy_.”

“Understood, Shepard,” EDI said. “I will enjoy helping you destroy him.”

“Well, you’re probably going to have to,” she said. “He’s entirely too confident that I can’t. Garrus can’t be involved, either. That just leaves Vega, Liara, and you.”

The elevator opened and Shepard walked into the shuttle bay and geared up beside Garrus and Liara. Garrus shot her concerned looks over the asari’s head but she shook her own. She would talk to them on the shuttle. Not here. They boarded and when they were away from the _Normandy_ , she removed her omni-tool chip and communicator and went to Cortez. “We’re going silent back here for a few minutes,” she told him. “Hold the shuttle off of Eden Prime until I say otherwise.”

“Understood, Commander,” he said.

She returned to the back and gestured for the others to disable their comm units. Liara rose and silently scanned the bulkheads. No one spoke as she removed a series of cameras and microphones that Garrus crushed under his heel. Liara performed a second sweep and then nodded. “Clear,” she said.

Shepard sighed and said, “Thank the gods. I’ve been waiting for an excuse to get you two away.”

“Is this about Thane?” Liara asked. 

“Yes,” Shepard said. “He kidnapped me during the assassination attempt. He used the venom his species produces in an attempt to brainwash me and it worked to a point. Fortunately, I’ve been forced to learn to compartmentalize and I was able to hold a part of myself back from him, buried deep. I don’t want to talk about what happened while he had me, though you’re going to have to see it, Liara. He planted certain…suggestions and triggers in my mind while I was in a vulnerable state. I remember him doing some of them but I don’t know if it’s all of them and I don’t know how to undo them. I need you to find them and get rid of as many as you can. Even with that, though, I’m going to need your help taking him down. I can’t risk Garrus or me being directly involved.”

“Why bring you back?” Garrus asked. “That’s something that’s been bothering me.”

“It’s part of his game,” she said. “He wanted to show off his control. He couldn’t do that alone on Illium. He likes the sense of power he gets from seeing me work and then come back and kneel in front of him. He has Commander fucking Shepard as his own personal slave. It’s a rush for him.” She went to him and cupped his mandibles in her hands. “I’m so sorry, Garrus. I’m sorry you had to see and be a part of what you did. I’m sorry I couldn’t tell you sooner.”

He ran a knuckle over her cheek and pressed his forehead to hers. “It’s all right, Shepard. He told me some of it himself. I knew you were in danger and damned if I was going to be anywhere but right behind you.”

“I don’t know how we’re going to do this,” she said. “I played my hand too early. I don’t think Liara, Vega, and EDI can take him down on their own.”

“We can do this, Shepard,” Liara said. “We just have to be smarter than he is.”

“That’s going to be easier said than done,” Shepard told her. “He’s brilliant.”

“Well, I’m no idiot myself,” Liara said. “We will figure it out. Now, let us get you free from that monster.” Shepard went to her and the asari’s eyes turned black. “Close your eyes. Embrace eternity.”

Shepard’s worst memories of her time with Thane had been dulled by venom haze. It had given them a distant quality that made her feel like it had happened to someone else. Liara’s clarity ripped the haze from them and displayed them in vivid color. Shepard wanted to be sick as she watched them roll by, months and months of rape, psychological torture, and abuse. It had been insidious at first despite the knowledge that he had kidnapped her. She hadn’t realized then that he could turn her own mind on itself. Watching it was like living it all over again but this time without the numbing warm rush of venom. 

Liara sorted through the memories, doing her best to maintain her professional, detached Shadow Broker demeanor but Shepard could feel her sympathy and she didn’t want it. She just wanted the nightmare to be over. She wanted to defeat the Reapers and live her life with Garrus and be happy. _You will,_ Liara assured her within her mind. _He cares about you. He isn’t going anywhere._ A moment later, she felt Liara hesitate. _We have a problem. It isn’t just Garrus you’re programmed to kill. It’s Vega, Tali, and me, too. Everyone from your old crews. I think EDI is safe because he did not anticipate her getting a body. I will try to remove it but I do not know if it will work._

“Would she really do that?” Garrus asked what felt like a long time later when Liara finally released her. “I know he says she would, but would she really kill us?”

“Oh, yes,” Liara said. “Absolutely. He has her programmed to believe that any of us who attempt to kill him have betrayed her and are working for the Reapers and have been from the start, that they are the reason for every obstacle she has faced and have undermined everything she has attempted to accomplish. She would kill us with extreme prejudice.”

“Damn,” Garrus cursed. “So what can we do?” 

“First,” Liara said, “we need to discuss the details away from her. I attempted to cut through the suggestions but I am not trained for this and cannot be sure it worked. If she learns details, she will tell him. We will also need EDI’s assistance.”

Several hours later, Shepard watched the events transpire once more, this time when the Prothean touched her.


	19. Chapter 19

Javik was tired of listening to the crew argue in the shuttle bay. He should be allowed peace to reflect on the demise of his people and upon the knowledge that he was the only one who remained in a cycle fifty-thousand years removed from his home and everything he had ever known. He should be allowed time to determine whether this human commander who was touted as this cycle’s last hope was worthy of the title or if he should simply take it from her. Instead, he was forced to listen to a group of primitives bicker over the lizard man already trapped aboard the ship. _Toss him out the airlock and be done with it,_ Javik thought.

He had seen her memories. He knew what had been done to her and how she had survived. Either drell venom had weakened since his cycle or she truly was strong. Drell had been a delicacy in his cycle, creators of a powerful psychotropic drug that, depending on the whims of the producer, could produce strong hallucinations or create a host of emotional states or induce extreme susceptibility. If the potency was the same, that she had been able to resist it was an accomplishment. However, had she not had the weakness that caring for her crew conveyed, she would not have been in this predicament in the first place. 

Ultimately, this was a distraction from the Reapers and that could not be allowed. There was only one enemy allowed in this war. He sighed heavily and made his way down to the shuttle bay. Everyone stopped and stared as he stomped toward them. “ _I_ will kill him. ‘EDI’ machine, you will keep the crew out of the way and prepare the airlock. I need someone who can utilize stasis and is willing to die for the commander.”

“I can do it,” the asari said. “Garrus, I think that if you can keep Shepard occupied, we can all help. As long as she isn’t present and Javik or EDI strikes the killing blow, she won’t be compelled to kill us.”

Javik nodded. “You will transport him to the airlock. I will slit his throat. The EDI machine will open the airlock and he will be jettisoned into space.”

___

They followed the Prothean into the elevator. Garrus wished them luck as he took it up to the captain’s deck. Shepard was pacing her cabin and chewing on a thumbnail when he entered. “Are you all right, Shepard?” he asked.

“Trying to figure out how to deal with Thane,” she said. 

“Let us worry about dealing with Thane,” he told her, running his hands up her arms. 

“Not that,” she said. “Though I need to do that, too. I’m trying to deal with what he did to me. What I let him do to me, to us.”

“It wasn’t your fault, Shepard,” he told her, tilting her chin up to face him. “The fault is in him, not in you.”

“But I liked it,” she said. “Some of it. A lot of it. You were there. You saw. Yes, there was venom but he didn’t even have to use it toward the end. I begged for him. I don’t know how to deal with that.” She finally looked at him. “He hit me today.”

“He what?” Garrus asked. 

“He slapped me in the face,” she said. “I don’t know why that stands out so starkly or why that was the thing that pushed me over the edge when I handled everything else. I just lost it. I told him everything. I told him I remembered it all. And now I have a madman on my ship and my crew is in danger and I can’t redirect it onto myself anymore to protect them.”

Garrus didn’t know what to say to that. He didn’t know what to say to her at all. He didn’t know how to comfort her. He wasn’t used to seeing Shepard doubt herself. “Your crew will be fine,” he finally said. “We’re all behind you. As for the rest, we’ll get through it together. We always do.”

“Not this time,” a voice said behind him.

“Shepard!” EDI said urgently. “Thane is loose! He disappeared into the ventilation system and I cannot locate him. I believe he is coming to your location.”

“He’s already here,” Shepard said as Garrus pushed her behind him. Every instinct he had pushed into dormancy reared to life at the sight of the assassin with his pistol on his hip and his fist glowing blue. His mate was in danger and this was not simply the danger of a broken psyche. This was her _life_ at risk. He would not lose her again. He would protect her or he would die trying.

“Are you so eager to die by her hand, Vakarian?” Thane taunted.

“If that’s what it takes to get her free of you, then yes,” Garrus answered in a low growl. He stripped his gloves and tossed them aside before unsheathing his talons. He’d kept them dulled for Shepard before but had begun honing them to razor sharpness since the drell had come aboard. He pulled his mandibles open and bared his teeth in open challenge. If he died here, then at least he would die fighting. It was about damn time he was able to fight for her.

Thane smiled widely and said, “So be it.”

“Lungs,” Shepard whispered low enough that only he could hear.

Thane hit them both with a biotic attack, throwing them across the room. Garrus jumped up and used the same speed Anderson had admired before to charge the drell. Unfortunately, the assassin was faster and he spun out of the way, bringing the blade of his hand down on the spines of Garrus’ fringe. His vision blurred but he lashed out with his foot and planted it solidly in the drell’s chest. Thane flew back into the glass of Shepard’s display case and it shattered. He doubled over, clutching his chest as he fought to draw breath. Before Garrus could press his advantage, Thane threw him back into the fish tank. It, too, shattered, covering the deck with water, sparkling shards of glass, and slippery, flopping fish. 

From the corner of his eye, Garrus saw Shepard reach into her wall locker and withdraw a pistol. She tossed it to Garrus and then grabbed her head and went to her knees. Garrus shot the assassin but Thane threw up a barrier that absorbed the slugs. Garrus rushed him again but the drell had recovered and Garrus ended up blocking a flurry of blows. One reached his mandible and he felt it crack but he ignored the pain and reached out, slashing under Thane’s arm with his talons. The leather jacket he wore was armored but Garrus had found an unprotected spot and he growled in feral satisfaction as red liquid poured from the wound. First blood was his. Across the room, Shepard screamed. It wasn’t a scream of fear or pain but of raw fury and he could only hope that she didn’t find another one of her many guns and shoot him before he took down the drell.

Thane sent a roundhouse kick to his keel and Garrus stumbled back but it put him just out of Thane’s range while keeping the drell in his. He heard something crack as his foot made contact with Thane’s knee. The assassin didn’t react. His hand glowed blue and Garrus shouted at the force of the warp that wracked his body. The assassin darted around him and Garrus felt his hands close over the sides of his head. He shot his elbow back into the drell’s abdomen and Thane grunted but his grip didn’t loosen. 

___

Shepard forced herself to her feet as the two men battled. She struggled to see them clearly. A part of her mind was insisting that Garrus was the enemy, that Thane was protecting her, that Thane must be saved. Another part of her, the part she’d kept hidden, told her that was a lie. She had managed to fight the suggestion off enough to throw Garrus a weapon but when he’d turned it on Thane, she’d felt herself begin to slip into darkness. This was what he’d meant when he’d said she would do it and not realize what she’d done until after it was too late. She fought to remain conscious and aware. 

Garrus lashed out at Thane and blood flew. For a moment, she looked at her lover and saw only an enemy. Sanity attempted to reassert itself and she felt as if her mind was being ripped into two separate people. This was Thane’s fault, Thane’s doing. He had to die. He couldn’t die. She loved him. She hated him. She loved Garrus. He was the enemy. Thane was the enemy. She gripped her head and screamed out her rage and frustration. When she looked up, Garrus was caught in a warp and Thane had his hands on her lover’s head, preparing to snap his neck. Clarity came to her in an instant at the sight of the man she’d loved through two lifetimes fighting for both his life and hers. She threw herself up the steps and activated her omni-blade. Thane froze when the glowing blade slipped beneath his chin. 

“Let. Him. Go,” she snarled. 

Thane laughed. “You cannot kill me, Siha.”

“Are you certain?” she asked in a low, deadly voice. 

“No,” he admitted, “but I am certain that you cannot do it before I kill him. I may die but you will lose him as well. Can you survive the knowledge that you could not save him?”

No. “I survived death. I can survive anything,” she growled. “Take your hands off of him.”

“No,” he said. “The moment I release him, my life is void.”

“Your life is void already,” she informed him. She felt Garrus’ hand on her leg and with an agonized scream, she drew the blade across Thane’s throat. Vaguely, she registered the sound of the door opening as she fell to the deck beside the dying assassin.

“Him. Out the airlock,” the Prothean said. “Her. To the medbay. Now.”

She felt Garrus’ arms slide under her and then there was only darkness. Her last thought before it overtook her was that she hoped she didn’t kill him.

___

Shepard didn’t have time to process the events that transpired before she was thrust into fighting Cerberus on the Citadel. It was two days before she made it back to her cabin with Garrus beside her. Someone had cleaned it and replaced the glass in her fish tank and display case. It was almost impossible to tell that anything had transpired here. Garrus wrapped his arms around her and she looked up at him. “Are you all right?” he asked.

“I will be,” she said. “It’s hard to believe he’s really dead. I keep expecting him to show up at any moment.”

“That won’t happen,” he said. “I watched Javik throw him out the airlock myself. You know, for a minute there, when you kept talking, I didn’t think you were going to be able to do it. I thought you were stalling for time for the others to get here.”

“I couldn’t let him take my best sniper, now could I?” she asked. 

“That might prove detrimental to the war effort,” he said with a grin. 

She sobered. “I wasn’t sure if I could, either. I hoped that I could stall enough that if I couldn’t do it, the others would have time to get here, so I waited until I heard the elevator. I couldn’t have done it if he hadn’t had his hands on you. Maybe I could have handled it if I’d just been too slow but if you’d died and I had just stood there and watched? There would have been three bodies to clean up.”

“I feel like I’ve spent the last month just standing by and watching you get hurt,” he said. “I don’t ever want to go through that again.”

“I’ll try to avoid sociopathic drell assassins in the future,” she said.

“Good plan,” he said. “How’d you know a kick to the chest would do that to him?”

“His lungs had started crackling a bit when he breathed,” she told him. “I noticed it the last time I had my head on his chest. Feron had mentioned a condition that drell get on Kahje once from the humidity. I had EDI venting the moisture from the fish tank into the room. I didn’t know if it would work but given how carefully he tended to avoid humid areas and how much time he spent in Life Support, I thought he might be susceptible.”

“What did he do to you that EDI won’t tell me about?” he asked.

“You don’t want to know,” she said. 

“Was it because I marked you?” he asked.

“It was because he was crazy,” she said firmly. “He was just looking for an excuse. I think he was hoping I’d tell you because you’d have come after him. Forget it, honey. I’m okay.”

“I’m so sorry, Shepard,” he said, dropping his forehead to hers.

“You have nothing to apologize for,” she told him, stroking his mandible. “You went above and beyond the call of duty for me.”

“Don’t I always?” he asked with a small grin.

“You do,” she said with a smile. 

“It made me crazy thinking about him hurting you,” he said.

“Garrus,” she said seriously, “I would have died if not for you. I couldn’t take him on my own. I tried once and he beat me without even using his biotics. I was honestly hoping someone would shoot him in the head in the field and we could be done with it but you saved me. You know what the really terrible thing is?”

“What?” he asked.

She looked at the empty tank beside them. “I’m going to have to buy more fish.”

“That is a true tragedy,” he agreed. 

She rose onto tiptoe and kissed him. “I want you, Garrus Vakarian. Just you and me.”

“I can do that,” he said with a grin and lifted her up to carry her across the room. 

She braced herself with her thighs over his hips and pulled her shirt over her head and unfastened her bra. He reached up to help and she leaned forward and nibbled at his collarbone as her hands trailed down over his chest, removing his tunic and allowing it to fall to the deck. He groaned and she kissed him again and felt his hands roam over her back, feeling the smooth skin and muscle beneath, testing its resilience, and heating her skin. Her palms flattened over his chest and her fingers slid between the plates to the soft skin beneath. 

He laid her down and she arched her back when he drew a nipple into his mouth and she felt his rough tongue slide over it. His thumb brushed the other before his hand slid down to her waist. It slid under her and she felt his talons draw down the length of her spine, sending tingles in their wake. He reached down and unfastened the clasp to her pants and slowly drew them down. His hand trailed up her leg, drawing her knee up to expose her. She traced the lines of his markings and he shuddered before sliding a finger against her.

"I want you, Garrus," she gasped as he circled her with a finger. He slipped it into her and she clung to him as he slid in and out drawing her moisture around her. His mouth trailed over her face and along her neck before licking her collarbone and moving down to nip lightly at her breast again. He continued down her torso, paying close attention to her abdomen. When he replaced his finger with his agile tongue, she groaned and fisted her hands in the sheets. Her body felt like it was on fire, burning from the inside out. "Garrus, please!" she groaned.

He drew out from her and made quick work of his own pants before moving up her body. He propped himself on an elbow and threaded his fingers through her hair as he slid himself against her and then halted, waiting just outside her entrance. She cried out, a sound of frustration and want, as she moved against him and she brought a hand down to his waist and another up to the spot under his fringe that made his eyes roll back and he obliged by sliding fully into her. She could feel every ridge and ripple of him as he stretched her. Her legs wrapped around his waist and her fingers dipped between the ridge of plates down his spine as she met his movements with her own.

Her breaths became more shallow and she started to strain against him as the heat rose within her and he responded in kind, making his strokes deeper, taking himself in to the hilt, sheathing himself completely within her. Her muscles tightened around him as her body tensed and she called his name in gasping sobs. He moved more strongly within her, speeding his pace as his talons kneaded into her flesh. He buried his face in her hair with a harsh groan, withdrawing almost completely to slam into her again and again. She cried out and arched against him and he grazed her shoulder with his teeth as he rode her and she rolled her hips to meet his sharp thrusts. 

“Bite me, Garrus,” she groaned. “Please.” Without hesitation, he sank his teeth into her shoulder over Thane’s mark and drove into her, claiming her for his own. His talons dug into her hips and she closed her teeth on his shoulder. She shouted his name as her body tensed. Her tight convulsions around him sparked his own release and he bit back a roar as he pulsed and spilled into her. 

It was several long minutes before she realized she hadn’t thought of Thane at all.


End file.
